2011/7/10 日本経済新聞
豪「炭素税」、１トン2000円 12年７月から
発表 http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/clean-energy-future/securing-a-clean-energy-future/#content01
オーストラリア政府は10日、包括的な温暖化対策の詳細を発表した。企業の二酸化炭素（ＣＯ2）排出に費用を課す「炭素価格制度」を2012年７月１日から導入し、排出量の多い企業約500社に１トン当たり23豪ドル（約2000円）の負担を求める。事実上の炭素税となる。負担は年2.5％上昇し、15年７月には排出価格が市場の需給で決まる排出量取引制度（ＥＴＳ）に移行する。
10日記者会見したギラード首相は「炭素価格制度がクリーンエネルギー経済をもたらす」などと述べ、再生可能エネルギーの普及促進につなが ると訴えた。年内に法案を上程する。炭素税導入で20年までに自動車4500万台に相当する１億6000万トンのＣＯ2排出量削減をめざす。一方で、鉄鋼 や石炭火力発電など大きな影響を受ける産業の雇用対策などに３年で92億豪ドルを投じる。
炭素税導入に伴う電気代や食品価格の上昇で、12年度（12年７月〜13年６月）の豪消費者物価指数（ＣＰＩ）が0.7％上がると試算す る。家計の負担は週9.90豪ドル増えるが、豪政府は９割の世帯を対象とした補助金や減税を実施する。原資には炭素税の税収の50％以上を充てる。
豪州では07年にハワード政権がＥＴＳ導入を表明し、その後のラッド政権が法案化したが上院の否決で断念している。ギラード首相も昨年８月 の選挙戦では任期中は炭素税を導入しないと公言していたが、今年２月に炭素税計画を発表したため、公約違反と受け止められ支持率が低迷している。
ギラード首相の与党・労働党は選挙で上下両院いずれも単独過半数を握れず、上院で法案成立の成否を握る環境政党「緑の党」との連携に依存す る。今回の炭素税構想にも緑の党の意見が大きく反映された。国民感情と景気への影響にも配慮して、家計への手厚い保護も打ち出し、対象企業も当初案の 1000社から500社に減らした。
豪州の温暖化ガス排出量は05年時点で世界全体の1.5％にとどまるが、人口１人当たり排出量は27.3トンで世界最大だ。豪政府は温暖化ガス排出量を20年までに00年比で５％以上減らし、50年までに同80％削減する目標を掲げる。
世界の温暖化対策では、欧州連合（ＥＵ）が05年にＥＴＳを導入したほか、東京都や米国の一部州も実施している。
Reuters
Australia unveils biggest
carbon-reduction scheme outside Europe
Australia unveiled plans on Sunday to slap a carbon tax of A$23 a
tonne on its 500 worst polluters from 2012, sweetened by tax cuts
for voters fearing higher power bills, and paved the way to adopt
the largest emissions-trading scheme outside Europe.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the worst polluting companies
would have to pay a A$23 price that would rise by 2.5 percent a
year, before the minority government moved to a controversial
market-based emissions scheme in mid-2015.
"Australians want to do the right thing by the
environment," said Gillard, whose country is the rich
world's worst per capita greenhouse gas emitter due to a heavy
reliance on ageing coal-fired power stations for electricity
generation.
Gillard, whose popularity has slumped to record lows over plans
to price carbon and drive up household energy costs, said the
plan would cut 159 million tonnes of carbon pollution in 2020,
reducing emissions by 5 percent over 2000 levels.
"That is why the Gillard government is implementing a
comprehensive plan for a clean energy future for our
nation," she said.
Australia's scheme will cover 60 percent of Australia's carbon
pollution apart from exempted agricultural and light vehicle
emissions, with Treasury department models showing it would boost
the consumer price index by only 0.7 percent in the first year of
the tax, in 2012-13 (July-June).
It could also aid global efforts to fight carbon pollution, which
have largely stalled since U.S. President Barack Obama last year
ruled out a federal climate bill this term. Outside the EU, only
New Zealand has a national scheme in operation.
Australia said it hoped to link its scheme, which would cost
A$4.4 billion to implement after household and industry
compensation to avoid a political backlash, to other
international carbon markets and land abatement schemes when its
emissions-trading market was up and running.
Europe's system, which covers the 27 EU member states plus
Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, has forced power producers to
pay for carbon emissions, driving cuts where power plants were
forced to switch to less carbon-emitting natural gas or biomass.
AID FOR STEEL-MAKERS, METAL REFINERS
Gillard said her government would spend A$9.2 billion over the
first three years of the scheme to ensure heavy polluting
industries like steel and aluminium production were not killed
off, and help close down the oldest and dirtiest power stations.
Assistance would come from free carbon permits covering 94.5
percent of average costs for companies involved in the most
emissions intensive and trade exposed sectors like aluminium
smelters and steel manufacturers, while moderate emitting export
industries would get 66 percent of permits for free.
Coal miners, including global giants Xstrata Ltd and the coal
arms of BHP Billiton , would be eligible for a A$1.3 billion
compensation package to help the most emissions intensive mines
adjust to the tax, which would add an average A$1.80 per tonne to
the cost of mining coal.
Australia, a major coal exporter, relies on coal for 80 percent
of electricity generation, which in turn accounts for 37 percent
of national emissions.
The government would also set up loan guarantees for electricity
generators through a new Energy Security Fund, to help the
industry refinance loans of between A$9 billion and A$10 billion
over the next five years.
The government would also fund the shut-down or partial closure
of the dirtiest generators and remove up to 2,000 megawatts of
capacity by 2020, while short-term loans would be offered to
generators to help re-finance debt and buy permits.
Australia's booming liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector, which is
due to decide on A$90 billion worth of new projects, would also
be included in the scheme, despite calls for 100 percent
protection. The sector will receive 50 percent assistance,
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said.
Steelmakers, including Australia's largest steelmakers BlueScope
and OneSteel Ltd , will receive 94.5 percent of free permits and
A$300 million in extra grants to help support jobs.
Agriculture will be exempt, but the government wants farmers and
foresters to cash in on carbon offsets through its carbon farming
initiative, which will allow offsets through forestry, changes to
land clearing, savannah burning and animal management.
To sooth belligerent voters, who polls show are 60 percent
opposed to a carbon price, the government has offered tax cuts to
low and middle-income households, as well as increased state
pension and welfare payments.
As well as exempting fuel from the scheme for all motorists
except for heavy transport, the tax-free threshold would also be
tripled to A$19,400 by July 2015 when emissions trading begins.
"No Australian will pay more tax as a result of these
changes," Gillard said.
The stakes are high for Gillard's government, which has just a
one-seat lower house majority, but the package already has the
support of the Greens and key independents, giving her the
numbers she needs to pass it through parliament. Two previous
attempts in 2009 were defeated.
Highlights of the Australian government's revised plan to cut carbon emissions by 5 percent by 2020 from 2000 levels:
CARBON SCHEME ARCHITECTURE
* Reduce carbon emissions by 159 million tonnes in 2020, to be achieved with a carbon tax from mid-2012 to mid-2015, followed by a carbon-trading system.
* Carbon tax to be at A$23 a tonne in 2012-13 (July-June), A$24.15 in 2013-14 and A$25.40 in 2014-15. No international carbon credits may be imported during this period.
* Carbon trading to begin in 2015-16, subject to three-year price ceiling of A$20 above the expected international price for 2015-16, rising by 5 percent in real terms for the next two years. There will be a price floor of A$15, rising by 4 percent per annum.
* In 2014, the government will set national emissions caps stretching out five years, consistent with a minimum overall reduction target of 5 percent by 2020 if parliament does not agree to increase that target in the meantime.
* International credits will be recognised from the start of trading in mid-2015, though their import will be limited to the equivalent of half of national emissions. Eligible credits listed as certified emission reductions (CERs) and emission reduction units (ERUs) -- both excluding nuclear-generated credits among other exceptions -- and removal units (RMUs).
* Scheme will cover about 60 percent of national emissions and will exclude farming and land sectors and will not flow through to the price of petrol at the pump, though rail and shipping firms, large trucking businesses and mines will pay the carbon tax indirectly on fuels such as diesel.
* Airlines will also pay the tax indirectly through a rise in an existing aviation fuel excise, though fuel used for international flights will be excluded.
COMPENSATION &
ECONOMIC IMPACTS
Emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries, such as aluminium
and zinc refiners and steel-makers, will be given free permits
covering 94.5 percent of average industry emissions for the first
three years.Assistance worth A$300 million over four years to
encourage investment and innovation in the Australian steel
manufacturing industry. The assistance aims to help the sector
become more efficient and sustainable. Steelmakers also face
pressures from a high Australian dollar and rising commodity
prices.The LNG industry to receive a supplementary allocation of
permits to have 50 percent effective assistance.The government to
negotiate the shut-down or part-closure of the most emissions
intensive electricity generators before 2020, removing up to
2,000 megawatts of capacity. The government aims to replace older
coal-fired power stations with cleaner generatorsTransitional
assistance will also be offered to strongly affected generators
through payments and permits. The government will also offer
short-term loans to help finance purchase of permits and debt
re-structuring.Carbon tax to boost consumer price index by 0.7
percent in 2012-13, then 0.2 percent in 2015-16.The government
did not give revised economic growth forecasts but said the
economy would continue to grow strongly through the
implementation of both the tax and the later carbon-trading
mechanism.
----
NYT
Australia Proposes Carbon Trading Plan, Again
Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia announced a plan on Sunday that would tax the carbon dioxide emissions of the country’s 500 worst polluters and create the second-biggest emissions trading program in the world, after the European Union’s.
The plan is projected to cut 159 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by 2020, the government said. In 2010, Australia produced 577 million tons of carbon emissions, according to the Department of Climate Change.
For the 500 companies - which would include mining giants with operations in Australia like BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata - the government has set a price of 23 Australian dollars, or $24.70, for each ton of carbon dioxide emitted starting July 1 of next year, rising 2.5 percent annually before shifting in 2015 to a market-driven trading program.
A similar proposal by Ms. Gillard’s predecessor, Kevin Rudd, was largely blamed for having led to his political downfall. Ms. Gillard argued, however, that Australia - one of the world’s largest polluters, per capita - could no longer ignore its global responsibilities.
“Scientific evidence has confirmed our planet is warming,” she said. “And after years of debate and deliberation, most Australians agree the time to act is now.
“Australians want to do the right thing by the environment. We are a confident, creative nation that’s up to the challenges of tackling climate change.”
Australia has been able to weather the global financial crisis better than most developed economies primarily because of Chinese demand for its natural resources, particularly coal and iron ore.
Critics of the emissions reduction plan have argued that putting a price on pollution would cripple Australia’s manufacturing and export industries, a point they were quick to make Sunday.
The opposition Liberal Party, which has opposed an emissions trading program under its leader, Tony Abbott, criticized the announcement on its Web site, arguing that the cost would be passed on to Australian families.
“Julia Gillard has betrayed the Australian people,” the Liberals said. “The carbon tax is not revenue neutral - another Labor broken promise. This means a bigger deficit this year, higher debt, more taxes, smaller forecast surpluses in the future and greater pressure on interest rates.”
The Minerals Council of Australia, an influential mining industry group, also criticized the plan. “With no other nation implementing an economywide carbon tax, this is a dangerous experiment with the Australian economy,” it said.
Qantas, the Australian national airline, joined the criticism, saying ticket prices would have to rise because of the plan. “While we are still modeling the cost impact, at 23 Australian dollars per ton, there will be some effect on passengers through higher domestic fares,” it said.
But Tim Jordan, a senior analyst at Deutsche Bank in Sydney, dismissed the bulk of those concerns as driven by political, not financial, orthodoxy.
He called the program a “solid start to reducing emissions,” but said the tremendous concessions given under the plan proved that, if anything, the government listened to businesses’ complaints.
“There’s a lot of extra spending in the form of targeted grant programs and specific funding for particular industries,” he said. “Almost every sector that’s complained about the impact of a carbon price has received some kind of new fund.”
The government’s Jobs and Competitiveness Program has set aside 9.2 billion dollars to shield high-polluting industries during the first three years of the plan.
The most emissions-intensive industries - aluminum smelting, flat-glass making, steel manufacturing, zinc smelting and most pulp and paper manufacturing - would initially receive free permits representing 94.5 percent of each industry’s average carbon costs. The permits will not be tradable for the first three years.
Industries that pollute less, including some plastics and chemical manufacturing, would be eligible for free permits to cover 66 percent of the industry average, while liquefied natural gas would receive an effective assistance rate of 50 percent.
John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute, an independent research group, praised the proposal and said he hoped it would lead not only to a brighter environmental future, but also to a break in the increasing acrimony surrounding Australian politics.
-----Australia is joining
a small but growing band of countries adopting some form of
carbon trading system.
The European Union’s scheme started in 2005 and is by
far the world’s largest. New Zealand launched
one last year and authorities from California to South Korea are
working on plans for similar initiatives.
“If
Australia had a trading system by 2015, California would be up
and running by then so you would have Europe, Australia,
California, New Zealand and South Korea. That is a non-trivial
international configuration of countries,”
said Mark Lewis,
managing director of commodities research at Deutsche Bank.
---------
Australia is joining a small but growing band of countries adopting some form of carbon trading system.
The European Union’s scheme started in 2005 and is by far the world’s largest. New Zealand launched one last year and authorities from California to South Korea are working on plans for similar initiatives.
“If Australia had a trading system by 2015, California would be up and running by then so you would have Europe, Australia, California, New Zealand and South Korea. That is a non-trivial international configuration of countries,” said Mark Lewis, managing director of commodities research at Deutsche Bank.
Sydney Mornign HeraldAUSTRALIA is set to embark on its biggest economic reform in a generation, with a surprise last-minute twist: a Robin Hood tax reform that will make lower and many middle-income earners better off but make higher-income earners pay most of the cost of the carbon tax.
The core of the plan unveiled yesterday sounds simple. The 500 biggest greenhouse gas emitters in Australia will have to pay a tax on their emissions, starting next year at $23 a tonne. Households will be compensated - generously at the bottom, not at all at the top. The firms most at risk will be given free permits. And several billion dollars will be spent to cut emissions by changing technologies.
But it's complex. Be warned: you are about to be bombarded by claim and counter-claim from all quarters. Truths, half-truths and outright lies will be difficult to tell apart.
The first complexity:
within three years the carbon tax will morph into an emissions trading scheme, in which companies buy and sell emissions permits - including from overseas - to meet the target to reduce Australia's emissions in 2020 to 5 per cent below 2000 levels.
Second: only 500 firms will be taxed, but they will pass on their costs to their consumers. The people really paying will be us. Overall, the impact on prices will be small: a 0.7 per cent lift in consumer prices initially, and then about 0.1 per cent a year.
Third: the compensation is very uneven. If you're in the bottom half of the income range, your price rises will be outweighed by big tax cuts or benefit rises: you will be better off. If you're in the top half, the balance probably will be the reverse: most will be worse off, if only by a few dollars a week.
Those at the top - the top 10 per cent according to the government, though that looks like an understatement - will pay the full tax, costing roughly 1 per cent of their take-home pay.
But it's complex. Try some of the key facts.
Will it cut our emissions? If so, how much?
Yes and no. Australia now emits 582 million tonnes of greenhouse gases a year. By 2020, Treasury projects, that will rise to 679 million tonnes without a carbon tax, and 621 million tonnes with one.
Even with a carbon tax, that is, Australia's emissions will rise, to be well over our 2020 target of 530 million tonnes. To meet the target, we would have to buy 91 million tonnes of international permits, from tribes pledging to preserve rainforests or whomever, at a global price Treasury estimates by then at $37 a tonne.
Treasury estimates the carbon tax would cut our 2020 emissions by 58 million tonnes. That's a cut of 0.1 per cent of projected global emissions at that time. Only global action can end global warming; Australia's actions would be part of that.
Would Australia be out in front of any other country?
In some ways, yes. More broadly, no.
More than 30 countries already have a price on carbon, mostly through the European Union's emissions trading scheme, which up to now has been smaller than what we're planning. But its third stage, to start from 2013, will be similar in coverage, and will move gradually to auctioning permits.
But the EU scheme is targeted at electricity and transport; even in stage three, most manufacturers will get their permits free. Australia's new tax promises fewer free permits, to fewer sectors, and for only five years, with a review in 2014.
We will lead the world in taxing emissions from mining and manufacturing. By contrast, our plan will exempt petrol, agriculture, and diesel for freight (at least until 2014). It had to - Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott helped write it - but many see congestion taxes as a better option.
Who are the big winners?
Senior couples living on investment income. Treasury estimates that a couple earning $70,000 evenly divided will get $2008 in government help, even though their share of the carbon tax would be only $480.
Welfare beneficiaries, part-time workers and people in low-wage jobs all come out ahead, although most by only a few dollars a week. But a couple splitting a household income of $40,000 and supporting a teenager would get $1793 in help to pay a carbon tax of $389.
And the losers?
Some will be on ordinary incomes. Singles are treated badly again: a single earning $80,000 will get only $16 aid towards his or her carbon tax of $441. Treasury assumes the tax is proportionate to your spending, so the more you earn, the more you pay - and even for families, compensation virtually cuts out at $150,000.
So you can't avoid this tax?
Yes, you can! This is a tax they want you to avoid! Its purpose is to drive change. Cut your use of things generating carbon emissions, and you get the cuts while dodging the worst of the tax.
Overall, Labor and its allies have given us a tax that will make only a modest initial impact on most households and business, and only a modest contribution to driving change and cutting emissions.
If global warming grows, both impacts will grow. If it doesn't, they won't.