Carbon Tax

Whatever it will be, it will be too much as it is a scam. Nothing more than a money grab by the incompetent government. If there was a true appetite to address Ireland carbon emissions (which is less than 1/10 of 1% of the world's emissions) the government would be giving many more incentives rather than blanket taxing.

As we know, the government couldn't be arsed doing what they are paid for and tax people to the hilt instead.

Orderofchaos wrote: »

How much do you think the new carbon taxes will add to 1 liter of diesel/petrol and kerosene/heating oil?

Rates are here:

https://revenue.ie/en/companies-and-charities/excise-and-licences/excise-duty-rates/mineral-oil-tax.aspx

The existing carbon tax is set at 20 euro per tonne of carbon.

So it's 4.587 cent per litre of petrol.

jim salter wrote: »

Whatever it will be, it will be too much as it is a scam. Nothing more than a money grab by the incompetent government. If there was a true appetite to address Ireland carbon emissions (which is less than 1/10 of 1% of the world's emissions) the government would be giving many more incentives rather than blanket taxing.

Please note that taxes are incentives.

London congestion charge = incentive to not drive

Plastic bag tax = incentive to change behaviour

Carbon tax = incentive to change behaviour

Income tax = incentive to not work.


Note that most taxes alter incentives.

blanch152 wrote: »

Carbon taxes should be increased dramatically. Ordinary people are not grasping the real dangers of climate change.

In theory, I'm for this. We need to push people away from the combustion engine as part of battling climate change (and no, before the inevitable counter argument crops up, I'm not saying that's enough or that it's the average joe's fault. I'm saying it, alongside clean energy and managing the major industries responsible, are all necessary), but Ireland hasn't done a wonderful job of making it feasible to transition away from ICE cars - which is where John and Jane Doe are going to notice the tax hitting them most likely.

Thankfully charges for charging points are coming in, which will hopefully be used to expand the network - making hybrid and electric vehicles more usable. Our capital is very car-centric and that needs to change. My housemate cannot get to work on time by any method except a car, cannot move closer because of rent costs, and cannot afford the buy an electric or hybrid car. A straight carbon tax is only going to make his cost of living more expensive, and he cannot (currently, rent prices may drop or he may get a better paying job in the future) shift away from his current car-based commute as much as he wants a hybrid. I'd wager he's not alone in being stuck in that situation.

I'm all for a carbon tax, it's a useful tool to raise money to combat climate change (use it to expand the charging point network, or shift to clean energy) and incentivise people to shift to less climate damaging habits. But we need to make those alternative habits easy and feasible to change to, otherwise it's just going to piss people off. I'll admit, I'm not quite sure how to go about doing that. Electric cars are getting cheaper all the time, but are still expensive (as cars are in general) and I don't tend to see a lot on the second hand market, and there's only so much in grants that can be provided. Our public transport infrastructure is...fine, but not particularly remarkable (not helped by the low residential/high job density of Dublin) and can't accommodate workers outside of the usual M-F, 9-5 working hours very well. I travel almost exclusively by public transport (I cannot drive and do not own a car), and have done so for the last decade, so I'm pretty familiar with where the gaps in timetables and routes are.

So...yeah. After that long-winded spiel I guess my point is a carbon tax is needed to push people away from the habits we need to discourage, but a tax alone is not enough. Changing a habit is a hurdle, and for some people that hurdle is too difficult to surmount without help. Use the tax to increase grants on HEV and EVs, or expand the transport network of buses/trams (timetable and routes) to commuter towns (ideally so that you don't pretty much have to go into the city centre and back out again to get anywhere in the greater Dublin area).

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Depends on what alternatives are available. If you have to drive for example, it's just another level of taxation. Maybe spend the money on subsidies for solar power, public transport or electric vehicles?

That's what I think needs to happen. Now it'd be hard to specifically point it that way, because I'd imagine it'd be treated like other taxes and just go into a big pool of money. But there is a term (I cannot for the life of me remember it) wherein money raised through a carbon tax is given almost directly back to people in a manner that further assists in moving away from carbon heavy attitudes, and also reduces the potential for carbon taxes to be regressive in nature.

Subsidies for electric vehicles, allowing households easier (cheaper) access to green energy sources, improving energy efficiency of housing through grants, etc... are all ways a carbon tax can be fed directly back into people to counter the impact it would have on disposable income.

There were some figures on the front of one of the papers this morning. Tank of car fuel up by €1, bag of coal up 70cent. Home hearting oil probably cost €70 more per year.
I only glanced at it, didn't bother buying it, didn't want to upset Gretta by helping burn the house down.

Just look what's happening in the UK Barclays have put £38 million aside for claims, even after 20yrs and selling excess electricity back to the grid you'd still not have saved any money.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/09/bbc-solar-panels-thousands-of-customers-complain/

It's not our behavior that needs to change first though, taxing us has little benefit. Did you see Pascal's satement on what he was going to do with the money, spend it on chastisting us or invest it in kinda funds that are good for families, complete bull****, wft is a kind of fund. What ROI is he expecting to make on these funds. These carbon taxes will not save the planet. Pascal has proved he can't invest, he should have sold our stake in AIB and BOI last year while the going is good, now he's left us the taxpayer holding the bag with another few billion hit, and he wants to take my money to invest in kind of funds. The contempt for the tax payer is off the scale.
Tax the cruise ships entering our water, tax the airlines, even our trains are meant to terrible polluters.
https://www.ft.com/content/8bceef94-86cd-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2

i'll say it again why is irish rail buying hybrid trains electrify the lines and buy electric trains - its not like its new technology.

can we dump even a proportion of what is spent on roads into public transport make it useable and affordale, a bus from donegal town to sligo is 18 euro return not goingto spend that in diesel

the first train into sligo from dublin doesnt arrive until 10:15 am so people dont use itto commute, no commuter services either.

outside dublin public transport is beyond pathetic

drunkmonkey wrote: »

With crude up close to 10% today they Government take via taxiation is already going up. In the current climate I think it would be a very foolish government to gouge even more.

Fuel excise is fixed in cents per litre.

You may be referring to VAT?

munstermagic11 wrote: »

"Carbon taxes should be increased dramatically. Ordinary people are not grasping the real dangers of climate change."

If you think carbon tax is anything but a tax raising exercise and another way to remove pleasures, freedoms and rights from us somebody has sold you a pup.

Remember this tax according to our finance minister is possibly going to be used in a kinda funds. If you think that's the best use of extra hardship on citizens and to save the planet keep cheering for more carbon tax.

I'm disgusted at the lanuguage he used when explaining where the money is going, it's as if he was taking to dumb citizens who take his words as knowledgeable and have no idea what a fund actually is but it sounds like a good idea to the uneducated on such matters.

If you told me the money was going into high speed electric trains, supporting local businesses to produce locally, bigger grants to support the uptake of alternative transport well then I might buy into it, but Pascal and his kinda funds can buzz off and get out of my pocket.

Carbon taxes and the Climate Change hysteria have been entirely hijacked by left-wing socialists to further their own tax and spend agenda. If we were serious to lower our Co2 emissions we should be lowering the price of electricity by at least half. Because of EU competition law the ESB a natural monopoly was opened up to artificial competition and as a direct result electricity prices have skyrocketed. Cut the price of power and install more renewables, let us move away from Piped Gas, Kerosene for home heating to electric heating, if power was cheap then storage heaters and HVAC systems would make sense. It would also cut out the huge oil delivery chain.

Carbon taxes is a ploy to extract money from the people and use it to further some other raving agenda of the bloated public and civil sector.

Geuze wrote: »

The current tax is 20 euro per tonne.

The plan is to eventually increase it to 80 euro per tonne.

This year, the talk is of 10 euro increase to 30 euro per tonne.

FF have mentioned 5 or 6 euro extra.

So in effect an increase of 2.5c/l on diesel.
So if you drive the average 20k km per year at average miles to the gallon you'll see an annual increase of €35/year. And that's why I think carbon taxes are useless.

They are nowhere near punitive enough to actually deliver change. The price of fuel has risen from below €1/l during the great recession to €1.35/l today and emissions have increased.

The real problem is that the economy depends on relatively inexpensive energy to function and only carbon based fuels can do that at the moment. The level that carbon taxes would been to be too actually change behavior would need to be 10 times that proposed.

It's greenwashing.