Good. The more painful the leap is, the greater the resistance will be (refer Australia’s carbon tax leap). Even better that the pain will be felt in Europe. What better way to alienate the masses than to inflict unnecessary pain. 270 billion euros looks like a “pain” tipping point to me.

The more the EU inhibits their economies, the greater NZ’s competitive advantage becomes (if only our pollies could grasp that concept, but sadly no, NZ must follow the herd)

The moribund NZ govt is more likely to lead the herd and impose an AU$45 carbon tax just like Gillard, Combet et al are proposing (why not? the ETS is totally ineffectual even if CO2 was a real threat). Then see how committed the NZ electorate is to fighting the sky dragon, and we might discover the “pain” threshold in the process. Obviously, NZ just has not felt the “pain” yet or we would be witnessing an OZ style revolt.

Note per year!!

I think it is useful to ask what is the overall cost of the ETS (both regulatory overheads and costs to businesses) and what is the overall projected impact of the ETS on global temperatures (assuming the IPCC models are correct).

Andrew Bolt did this so well in his demolition of EU’s Jill Duggan.

If he calculates the EU measures will cost $250 billion (source: Richard Toll) and that this will have an impact of 0.05degC on global climate (for arguments sake), then we can assume, of the top of my head, that if NZ’s population is approximately 1/100 of Europe, then the impact of NZ will be tops in the range 0.0005degC

So if we can keep stating that it will cost $ billion to mitigate global temperature by 0.0005 degC, and keep repeating this ad nauseam then the public will rapidly realise what a completely futile exercise this is.

Another “thought experiment” is to calculate how many days or weeks it will take the Chinese to undo our work that cost $x billion (I think it would be a few weeks max).

I am basing this on the assumption that the Chinese are deploying a new coal fired power station every week or so (and which we happily provide coal for).

This is Andrew Bolt interviewing Jill Duggan, the bureaucrat in charge of Britain’s emissions trading scheme.

She has absolutely no clue whatsoever what the EU ETS will cost ($250 billion), or what the impact will be (0.05degC according to IPCC models)

Utterly hopeless. This is the state of global climate politics.

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/3/10/rolls-royce-minds.html

(2Mb audio linked at bottom of post)

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20110306/tsc-europe-to-turn-up-heat-on-climate-ta-4de741d.html

I cannot see any justification for including methane from cattle in the ETS.

ETS is SMP’s for Trees. The taking of silver for carbon credits means there will be no lumber sold in the future. Simply no processor will invest in plant to process post 1990 forest because there is no way of knowing what the carbon liabilities those forests will atract. No investment and no jobs ! We already export 10 million cubic metres of log which would support up to 16,000 jobs in rudimentary processing and down stream employment (job mulitplier). Carbon forestry supports 10 percent of the down stream employment of processing. Green jobs?? bollocks!

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/environment/air_co2_emissions.htm

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/mtr_today_march_9/

We chat to Jill Duggan (above), from the directorate-general for climate action at the European Commission, who says the opposition here to a carbon dioxide tax is ”slightly bizarre” when Europe has no problem with its own price on carbon dioxide. Really, I ask, with European unemployment at 10 per cent and growth at just 1.6 per cent? So I ask this salesman of the EU emissions trading scheme the two basic questions everyone should ask of anyone selling anything: how much does it cost, and what will it do? How many billions will Europe spend on this scheme to cut its emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, and by how much will that cut the world’s temperatures by 2100? The interview suddenly goes very pear-shaped for one of us – and is a stunning indictment of the EU’s foolishness. The question about job losses caused by Europe’s green schemes goes no better.