Climate Change: "NZ should drop ETS and adopt a simple carbon tax"

To continue from my earlier blog why NZ should have adopted a carbon tax rather than an ETS scheme.


Whaleoil has blogged the following excerpt article from the Financial Times (requires registration, then search ETS).

Europe’s largest employers’ group has warned against meddling in the carbon market to prop up sagging prices, just a day after one of the continent’s top energy executives declared the market “dead” and demanded urgent intervention to save it.

In a letter to parliament released on Wednesday, Philippe de Buck, president of BusinessEurope, warned that moves to withdraw carbon permits from the market to bolster prices “would, if implemented, create further uncertainty and price volatility, and establish a risky precedent of rapid political interference in the market”.

Mr De Buck, whose constituents have struggled to forge a common position on the issue, said he wanted “an open discussion … about the general climate policy framework and the longer term future” of the carbon market.

In December, the European parliament’s environment committee approved a resolution calling for the removal of more than 1bn surplus carbon permits from the market in an effort to shore up prices. The industry committee will vote on a similar measure at the end of this month.

Other elements of corporate Europe, particularly heavy industry, argue that such meddling would make a mockery of the market.

Johannes Teyssen, chief executive of Germany’s EON, urged policy makers to make fixes. “Let’s talk real: the ETS is bust, it’s dead,” Mr Teyssen said in Brussels this week, adding: “I don’t know a single person in the world that would invest a dime based on ETS signals.”

Our scheme is now in serious trouble (or will be shortly).  Message to John Key and Nick Smith, "Follow Australia with a carbon tax before the ETS gets even more embarrassing"