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POLITICIANS IN LEINSTER House will today hear representations from Irish and international experts about a carbon tax model that would see households receive a dividend from taxes collected from fossil fuel companies.
The carbon fee and dividend model was adopted in Canada last year and Professor Kathryn Harrison from the University of British Columbia will be in Dublin to outline the Canadian experience of its implementation.
The model sees taxes on carbon levied on polluters based on the amount of pollution produced, with the levy then increasing each year for a set number of years.
With the revenue raised from the tax, households would be paid a rebate that is designed to be greater than any increased costs they may face from the levy (from the tax itself, but also from any increases to household costs because of companies passing on the charge to consumers).
The dividend would be paid based on the number of persons in a household with a slightly lower figure per child.
Companies that face increasing costs from the levies could potentially pass those costs onto consumers but Green Party leader Eamon Ryan says only households with heavy carbon usage are likely to be hit more than the rebate they receive.
“The revenue that you’d get from it, we would like it redistributed it in its entirety to every householder. And the research that the ESRI has done says it’s actually a net cash benefit to every house. Particularly those on lower incomes because they tend to consume less and have lower emissions,” said Ryan, who’s chairing today’s event.
There’s still a price you’re paying slightly more but the cash revenue back to the household covers most of that cost. There’ll be a small percentage of houses, about 6-8%, who would maybe, because they’re commuting huge distances or have an incredibly inefficient heating system, who might be net cash losers, but 95% of houses it’s actually a cash benefit.
A representative from international advocacy group Citizens’ Climate Lobby will also be making presentations during today’s Leinster House meeting.
The group has made the advancement of the carbon fee and dividend model one of its primary goals and has argued that it also has the potential to stimulate the economy.
The Citizens’ Climate Lobby argues that the model makes renewable energy sources more competitive and is relatively cheap to implement.
The Greens have met with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to discuss the model and Ryan says his party believes it could be implemented in an “efficient, low-cost and effective” way using both the tax and social welfare systems.
Ryan adds however that the system should only be implemented as part of a package of climate action measures that would, for example, give people in rural areas “a really high-quality bus service at the same time”.
“We think it’s important to give the signal that there is a price on pollution and that’s why this is in two parts. It does say pollution is not without a cost but with the dividend at the end of it, it’s not there as a revenue raising exercise or punitive measure, it’s a way of making it easier people to switch, to do the right things and the more they switch the more they save.”
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Sure. Like the sugar Tax that none went back to where it was meant to and car tax.
@Jim O Brien – TechBuzz Ireland: the sugar tax is to discourage the fatties from consuming sugar which makes people fat and motor tax goes into general taxation that then pays for all the road infrastructure.
Both can be readily avoided with the right life-choices.
@Fozz: do your homework buddy. Because you’re wrong.
@Fozz: These taxes are going to pay for the public service pay and pensions bill and nothing else, its totally unsustainable already and the next recession will see the chickens come home to roost again…..their filthy greed will sink us all.
@Fozz: making the right life choices – could you be more condescending ??? plenty of people need to drive out of necessity to earn a living or work /do business on this wonderful lsland – nothing to do with making the right life choices – such a self centred view of the world not to mention ill informed.
So let me get this straight. You want to take money off polluting companies and then literally hand that money to working families across Ireland? Good for the climate and for society as a whole. Where do I sign up?
@Kev: Becareful what a politician says.
Ireland owes €200+ billion due to the crash and another one on the way. So when these people say we are going to give you money back…it’s time to check the small print because Joe Public never wins!!
@Kev: In Cloud Cuckoo Land. You can get the forms at the Water Charge Office, but opening hours are are restricted to just before the next election.
@Kev: don’t be so naive this is the usual spin we get before some new tax is implemented, but just worded different.
I would not trust the Government to refund a red cent.
@Peter Buchanan: i wouldn trust this government or the next
Carbon off set companies should be illegal, it like drunk drivers paying into a fund for victims so that they can continue driving drunk.
@Life is short enjoy it: I couldn’t say it better
Sounds good, as presented. How soon before reality strikes and “dividends” are reduced because … well just because … any deception will do.
In all my life, I have never heard such a lot of hot air rubbish as that which permeates this whole climate action debate. When a politician explains to me what will happen when we get a three week, winter, blocking high pressure event, where the power is going to come from, I will be listening.! And don’t tell me batteries. Nuclear from the UK and France, but sorry, such a weather event is often “continental” and they will need every Kw. of power themselves.
No, we need a really well planned native, cyclical biomass system. CHP in every town. All subsidies to that end, not producing beef cattle for the commodity market. This would be of massive ecological and rural economic benefit. Farmers would be far better off, but can’t as yet see it.
BUT, horror, horror, horror All. We and all in the temperate and cold zones, are also going to have to engage with the dirty word. Nuclear. Generation 4, molten salt, mass produce modular units. Very little to do with the old types, except they feed on the former’s noxious wastes. Problem is, though they are a thousand times safer, and ten times more efficient for energy production, they are useless for bomb making.
http://www.bene.ie for information.
Finland is probably Europe’s most advanced society. Wonder do the Green Party there support nuclear.? Of course.
We’re still paying for E.Ryan’s last time in Government. We like to preach to 4.7m Irish, 10% of who want to believe they alone can save the Galaxy. If we were serious about it we’d be preaching to the 5 Billion people in the World that haven’t even heard about Climate Change. It’s difficult to leave the comfort of our little country for the potential dangers of delivering the Climate Change Gospel to people that have to scrape a living to survive.
@John Declan: News recently blamed older diesel cars for poor air quality due to congestion, do you know which party caused a generation of car owners onto to diesel, The Green Party. I don’t hear them talking about cleaning up their own mess they caused. They get elected on 1 policy, the environment.
Correct. They neatly blew the motor industry into space and had us all switch to diesel. Greens not to be trusted about economics as they don’t think things out. Guarantee this will cost the taxpayer! . Shades of cash for ash in the north
Nothing change with the green dreamers.
If they taxes their own bull the national bankers debt would be paid off in notime
Surely , Irish people are smarter now…
This is way way too good to be true. It is a brilliant idea, the wealthy who cause more pollution, more holidays, bigger cars, bigger houses will be taxed and subsidising those who are poorer. It is way too progressive to be implemented, there has to be a catch
” A really good bus service in Rural Ireland” Now that really is laughable—-Some people have to drive for up to 15 or 20 miles over narrow potholed boreens to the nearest bus stop. Eamon Ryan has absolutely idea about life in Rural Ireland, but it’s nice to spout a lot of Pius Platitudes, the Irish equivalent of saying “Let them eat cake”
Let me get this right, The Goverment want to give your average Joe Soap money back, call me naive but there is something wrong with this picture, great idea but I can’t see the average Joe getting a penny!
Can I have my overpayment of Motor Tax on my petrol car since 2008 back please,
since I did just 3000 miles a year (low carbon footprint) and did not spew out soot and fumes and noxious gases like diesel cars …. promoted by the daft Greens (Ryan’s Green Daughters!)
Sign the petition before they create another mess!
https://www.change.org/p/unfair-irish-car-carbon-tax-law
Ridiculous stupid idea that won’t work carbon tax that people will win riot against corrupt government
So the only people that will lose out are those that cant afford to upgrade their heating systems and cars to lower their carbon footprint and those that have enough money to have their house A rated and newer lower emission cars meaning a lower carbon footprint will benifit… more money for the rich as usual
there are about 100 corporations on this planet that account for 60+ % of all the emissions and yet the governments are intent on shifting this problem to make the public pay instead of engaging on a global level to really get to an authentic polluter pays solution……..how are we so brainwashed to see the plastic coca cola bottles as a problem of our own making when they could have just kept selling it in glass bottles …….
PLAIN AND SIMPLE USE THE CARBON TAX FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY. AND PAY THE LOWER INCOMES BACK IN FREE ELECTRICITY ETC ETC.
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