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Is Fine Gael in climate change denial

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    #32
    troyzer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,199 ✭✭✭troyzer


    I actually agree that carbon taxes are a load of ****e in our case.

    The entire point of a carbon tax is not to punish people but to disincentivise carbon based products in favour of non carbon alternatives. It's the same way tariffs are in theory designed to work, make imports more expensive thus encouraging people to buy local.

    The problem with Ireland is that you can't just carbon tax everything without providing a solution. The tax is supposed to change behaviour but there's no alternative.


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    #33
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    Eric Cartman wrote: »

    In terms of getting people 'out of cars' a congestion charge in cities is the only way that doesnt disproportionately screw over rural ireland.


    And for rural Ireland we can have a distance from the nearest urban area tax. Transportation is nearly half of our carbon and rural Ireland needs to take ownership of their decisions to live 10 k away from the nearest village.


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    #34
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users Posts: 20,397 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    troyzer wrote: »
    I actually agree that carbon taxes are a load of ****e in our case.

    The entire point of a carbon tax is not to punish people but to disincentivise carbon based products in favour of non carbon alternatives. It's the same way tariffs are in theory designed to work, make imports more expensive thus encouraging people to buy local.

    The problem with Ireland is that you can't just carbon tax everything without providing a solution. The tax is supposed to change behaviour but there's no alternative.

    Ireland has a major problem in that we don't have a cohesive or coherent taxation policy - what we have is a piecemeal taxation system with plasters here and there to cover the death by a thousand cuts.

    If we looked at the amount of taxation on fuel, we'd be querying why we need to pay Motor Tax on top of that and VRT on top of that.


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    #35
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    road_high wrote: »
    And what exactly is a Carbon tax going to achieve?
    Apart from screw the low paid and struggling middle even more, who have to rely on carbon fuels for heating and transport?
    If the state gave a damn about the issue- they’d channeling support into renewable alternatives - but that would take effort, massive focused spending and leadership. Easier just slap on another tax

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fV6eeckxTs


    Interesting video on the effect of carbon pricing on both companies and tax payers. Basically they used the money from the carbon tax to fund cutting income tax and fund taxpayers becoming more energy efficient in effect resulting in no net lose.


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    #36
    James Brown
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,015 ✭✭✭✭James Brown


    I always felt that any monies from any carbon tax, levies under the guise of the environment etc. should go 100% towards alternative energies or greener ways of doing things otherwise they are just another tax. They may as well raise something else than have the farce of it.


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    #37
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    Like it or not we'll be paying for carbon by the end of the year. I'd rather those emitting the carbon pay for it rather it being payed out of general taxation.


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    #38
    troyzer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,199 ✭✭✭troyzer


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    Like it or not we'll be paying for carbon by the end of the year. I'd rather those emitting the carbon pay for it rather it being payed out of general taxation.

    It's not realistically going to reduce emmissions though.

    People still need to drive places. The energy grid is still based on fossil fuels and the consumer has no control over that.


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    #39
    road_high
    Registered Users Posts: 19,388 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fV6eeckxTs


    Interesting video on the effect of carbon pricing on both companies and tax payers. Basically they used the money from the carbon tax to fund cutting income tax and fund taxpayers becoming more energy efficient in effect resulting in no net lose.

    And can you see that happening here? They’ll raid the money raised to give to welfare bonuses or PS pay increases the first chance they get


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    #40
    Eric Cartman
    Registered Users Posts: 26,283 ✭✭✭✭Eric Cartman


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    And for rural Ireland we can have a distance from the nearest urban area tax. Transportation is nearly half of our carbon and rural Ireland needs to take ownership of their decisions to live 10 k away from the nearest village.

    And how do you propose people operate farms living in all of these towns...


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    #41
    James Brown
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,015 ✭✭✭✭James Brown


    troyzer wrote: »
    It's not realistically going to reduce emmissions though.

    People still need to drive places. The energy grid is still based on fossil fuels and the consumer has no control over that.

    I've no doubt. It's another shameless money spinner. If the money doesn't go towards green energy or some such it's a complete sham cash grab.


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    #42
    troyzer
    Registered Users Posts: 6,199 ✭✭✭troyzer


    Matt Barrett wrote: »
    I've no doubt. It's another shameless money spinner. If the money doesn't go towards green energy or some such it's a complete sham cash grab.

    It'll go towards paying the fines.

    Although all of this money is fungible. Do we actually have a single streamed revenue source which goes into a single pot and isn't counted as general revenue?

    How does PRSI work?


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    #43
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    troyzer wrote: »
    It's not realistically going to reduce emmissions though.

    People still need to drive places. The energy grid is still based on fossil fuels and the consumer has no control over that.

    People don't have to drive, they don't have to live in the middle of nowhere (let's exclude the current people living miles from their nearest village). Let's add a x euro per km people live from a village to the property tax.

    The energy grid is slowly becoming greener but I agree the consumer has no control of that. However they have control over their demand. A friend of mine has a nest in their house and they've it set to 28 degrees!


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    #44
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    Eric Cartman wrote: »
    And how do you propose people operate farms living in all of these towns...

    Same as they do in France and Britain? However I'm willing to give an exception to those actively working a farm.


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    #45
    ancapailldorcha
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 37,346 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    road_high wrote: »
    Farming is a handy scapegoat- few in number so easy to tar with the climate brush.
    Why not restrictions on car ownership, foreign travel via air? It’s easy target one specific sector when it doesn’t affect you very much and let them shoulder all the pain.

    When did I suggest targeting one specific sector alone? Other posters were discussing vehicle and traffic so I mentioned farming.

    We sat again for an hour and a half discussing maps and figures and always getting back to that most damnable creation of the perverted ingenuity of man - the County of Tyrone.

    H. H. Asquith



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    #46
    MrMusician18
    Registered Users Posts: 7,235 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    L1011 wrote: »
    Ross in Transport is probably more responsible for a lot of that than FG; however he is being allowed do his pricking around. Carbon tax is being held up by being beholden to rural Independents. Independents in Government simply don't work - they manage to take the most parochial parts of other politicians and do only that.

    With an effective Minister there, we'd be further along with Metrolink and BusConnects in Dublin and probably the regional city BusConnects also.

    Ringsend and Finglas Luas should both be under design, but aren't. DART Underground should be under redesign, but isn't. New train cars should have been ordered, but aren't. At least the Maynooth line electrification is under design.
    Carbon tax will just be seen as a revenue raising measure since the alternatives do not exist. If diesel at €1.30/l doesn't reduce use, diesel at €1.33/l won't make a difference to consumption either.

    Private motor transport is not a particularly large component of overall total emissions. Iirc it's something like 7%.


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    #47
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    MrMusician18 wrote: »
    Private motor transport is not a particularly large component of overall total emissions. Iirc it's something like 7%.

    Do you have a source for this?


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    #48
    Eric Cartman
    Registered Users Posts: 26,283 ✭✭✭✭Eric Cartman


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    Same as they do in France and Britain? However I'm willing to give an exception to those actively working a farm.

    Most of the 'one off houses' I think youre objecting too are usually within a few km of a village, often not absolutely in the middle of nowhere. Sure look at straffan, most of its 'population' are living in one offs within a 3km radius, wall to wall houses on an individual half or full acre.


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    #49
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    Eric Cartman wrote: »
    Most of the 'one off houses' I think youre objecting too are usually within a few km of a village, often not absolutely in the middle of nowhere. Sure look at straffan, most of its 'population' are living in one offs within a 3km radius, wall to wall houses on an individual half or full acre.

    There appears to plenty of houses 8km or more away from Straffan/next nearest village and that's a comparably good example . Look at the N59 north of Galway for one of the worst.


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    #50
    road_high
    Registered Users Posts: 19,388 ✭✭✭✭road_high


    Eric Cartman wrote: »
    Most of the 'one off houses' I think youre objecting too are usually within a few km of a village, often not absolutely in the middle of nowhere. Sure look at straffan, most of its 'population' are living in one offs within a 3km radius, wall to wall houses on an individual half or full acre.

    A huge mistake of the past twenty years or so has been the proliferation of one off housing- my own local small town/village has been struggling to grow in that time but all around it are literally dozens of one offs- this housing should have been channeled into the nearest village or town and would have led to great efficiencies of transport and service provision. May also have allowed development of group heating systems etc.
    I come from a rural area and think that only farmers, people with ties to the specific area should have been allowed build.


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    #51
    MrMusician18
    Registered Users Posts: 7,235 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    Do you have a source for this?

    I'll have to dig out the figures but Transport in all forms accounts for just 20% of total emissions. When you strip out domestic aviation, public transport, fuel tourism, road haulage and rail, you find that in absolute terms, private car transport accounts for about 7% of the overall emissions figures. The small size of car figures tends to surprise us given how ubiquitous the car is. We forget though that the average car spends between 95 -99% of it's life parked up.

    From memory I think the CO2 emissions from cars is roughly the same as domestic turf burning for heating.

    Which would be easier to change?


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    #52
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    MrMusician18 wrote: »
    I'll have to dig out the figures but Transport in all forms accounts for just 20% of total emissions. When you strip out domestic aviation, public transport, fuel tourism, road haulage and rail, you find that in absolute terms, private car transport accounts for about 7% of the overall emissions figures. The small size of car figures tends to surprise us given how ubiquitous the car is. We forget though that the average car spends between 95 -99% of it's life parked up.

    From memory I think the CO2 emissions from cars is roughly the same as domestic turf burning for heating.

    Which would be easier to change?

    https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eii/eii2016/ggcc/

    A useful link for all


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    #53
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users Posts: 20,397 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eii/eii2016/ggcc/

    A useful link for all
    Agriculture and Forestry was the sector with the largest greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland in 2014 with 33% of the total.

    The Transport share of greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland increased from 9% in 1990 to a peak of 21% in 2007. In 2014 it stood at 19% of total greenhouse gas emissions.

    I didn't see a breakdown between private / commercial transport?


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    #54
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    I didn't see a breakdown between private / commercial transport?

    It doesn't but it's a decent base for this discussion .


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    #55
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users Posts: 20,397 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    It doesn't but it's a decent base for this discussion .
    Oh wait here it is: https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eii/eii2016/trans/
    The number of licensed vehicles in Ireland increased by 181%, from 915,000 to 2.6 million, between 1985 and 2015.

    Private cars accounted for the majority of this growth with an increase of almost 1.3 million vehicles between 1985 and 2015.

    The number of goods vehicles licensed has grown more than threefold from 93,000 in 1985 to 331,000 in 2015.
    Road Freight transport in Ireland peaked in 2007, when there were just under 300 million tonnes carried, over 18.7 billion tonne-kilometres and 2.3 billion vehicle kilometres travelled. Activity levels fell significantly in the next five years before increasing again in 2014. In 2014 there were 112.5 million tonnes carried, 9.8 billion tonne-kilometres travelled and 1.3 billion vehicle kilometres travelled.

    Viewed with Table 6.3, it would be logical to assume that the level of pollution from private cars is not an insignificant portion of the 19% but I wouldn't suggest it is any more than 30% of the 19%


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    #56
    MrMusician18
    Registered Users Posts: 7,235 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    Oh wait here it is: https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-eii/eii2016/trans/





    Viewed with Table 6.3, it would be logical to assume that the level of pollution from private cars is not an insignificant portion of the 19% but I wouldn't suggest it is any more than 30% of the 19%

    Which would put it at just under 6% (I said 7%) of total emissions, my memory isn't that bad so.

    We get caught up in taking relatively huge measures which have a poor return, which is nothing more than green washing tbh. Simply banning all turf cutting would have a far greater return than electrification of the entire national private car fleet.


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    #57
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users Posts: 20,397 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    MrMusician18 wrote: »
    Which would put it at just under 6% (I said 7%) of total emissions, my memory isn't that bad so.

    We get caught up in taking relatively huge measures which have a poor return, which is nothing more than green washing tbh. Simply banning all turf cutting would have a far greater return than electrification of the entire national private car fleet.

    I'm not sure the data backs you up on that. Look at Table 6.3 in terms of the Motor Tax change in 2009. The proportion of new private cars registered in emission bands A and B increased from 12% in 2005 to 95% in 2015, while the proportion in emission bands E, F and G fell from 37% to 1% over this period.

    That's a huge reduction of pollution as a result of a green policy of taxation. The fact that the total "transportation" pot only reduced by 1% is directly correlative to the increase in commercial transportation.

    The return on the 2009 tax amendment has more than offset a massive increase in commercial transportation.


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    #58
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    MrMusician18 wrote: »
    Which would put it at just under 6% (I said 7%) of total emissions, my memory isn't that bad so.

    We get caught up in taking relatively huge measures which have a poor return, which is nothing more than green washing tbh. Simply banning all turf cutting would have a far greater return than electrification of the entire national private car fleet.

    Yes banning turf cutting and re-wetting the bogs would be simple and very effective .


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    #59
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users Posts: 20,397 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    It's a multi-pronged solution that is required - just because one thing would have a huge impact doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing other things also.

    I'd agree with the opinion that any carbon tax should be used solely to invest in renewable energy in Ireland for domestic use and sale to other countries.

    We are in desperate need of a taxation overhaul.


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    #60
    MrMusician18
    Registered Users Posts: 7,235 ✭✭✭MrMusician18


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    It's a multi-pronged solution that is required - just because one thing would have a huge impact doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing other things also.

    I'd agree with the opinion that any carbon tax should be used solely to invest in renewable energy in Ireland for domestic use and sale to other countries.

    We are in desperate need of a taxation overhaul.

    It agree with the first paragraph above in particular. A multi pronged approach should focus on the areas that give the greatest return as a priority. Electrification of the private car fleet in it's entirely would see overall emissions fall by what, 3.5%? Hardly a huge gain given the massive investment involved.

    Moneypoint is the largest single emitter in the country, we should start there.


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    #61
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users Posts: 20,397 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    MrMusician18 wrote: »
    It agree with the first paragraph above in particular. A multi pronged approach should focus on the areas that give the greatest return as a priority. Electrification of the private car fleet in it's entirely would see overall emissions fall by what, 3.5%? Hardly a huge gain given the massive investment involved.

    Moneypoint is the largest single emitter in the country, we should start there.
    I would prefer large-scale government investment into providing significant grants for solar PV on private residential properties than "electrification of the private car fleet", but I believe the policy of VRT/Motor Tax being based on CO2 has been sufficient and continues to be sufficient to drive people towards electric/hybrid vehicles. I do believe, however, that the Government should take active measures to get people to move away from diesel cars.


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