Bank Tax, CO2 Auctions Recommended by Soros Panel to Help Climate Efforts

Earlier last week a United Nations panel issued a report recommending ways to fight global warming. The group suggested that taxing foreign-exchange transactions and auctioning pollution permits could raise $65 billion.

Bloomberg reports:

The panel, which includes billionaire investor George Soros and Larry Summers, director of President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council, said selling carbon-emissions permits would generate $38 billion and a financial transactions tax an additional $27 billion, according to the report released today.

The findings are intended to guide envoys at UN climate talks that start this month in Mexico as they seek ways to pay for $100 billion in climate aid that was pledged by 2020 to poor nations at last year’s summit in Copenhagen. The report found that the goal is “challenging but feasible” to achieve.

“Without agreement on finance, we will not be able to reach agreement on other issues for climate change,” Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s prime minister and co-chairman of the advisory group, said at a press conference in New York. “Now we need the political will to take the decisions.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed the panel, called the High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing, in February. It’s led by Stoltenberg and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The 21-member group also includes Soros, Summers and Deutsche Bank AG Vice Chairman Caio Koch- Weser.

Read more here

Obama Adviser Says no Climate Change Law this Year

A little over a week ago I posted a blog entry discussing the tax implications of cap and trade reform, and now Obama’s top energy advisor (Carol Browner) has spoken out saying that changes to our current climate and trade laws are “not going to happen.”

Browner made the statement at a conference organized by The Atlantic magazine, just days after Senate Democrats introduced a major bill on climate change. In a video posted on the magazine's Web site, Browner was asked about the prospects of enacting climate legislation by the time negotiations on a global climate treaty begin in December in Copenhagen.

"Obviously, we'd like to be through the process, but that's not going to happen," Browner said. "I think we would all agree the likelihood you would have a bill signed by the president on comprehensive energy by the time we go early in December is not likely."

Senate Democrats unveiled a bill Wednesday that aims to cut greenhouse gasses by 20 percent by 2020. The House passed a bill in June that calls for a 17 percent emission cut by 2020.

The Senate bill includes an economy-wide cap-and-trade system that would require power plants, industrial facilities and refineries to cut carbon dioxide and other climate-changing pollution. While there would be an overall emission cap, polluters would be able to purchase emission allowances to limit reductions. The bill, however, does not lay out how emission allowances would be distributed, a contentious issue left for resolving later.

Climate change is competing with several other big issues for the attention of lawmakers. Among the issues: overhauling the nation's health care system and imposing new financial regulations on Wall Street.

Climate Change Legislation To Generate $624 Billion In Tax Revenue

Earlier today I came across this interesting article on Examiner.com discussing the revenue Barack Obama’s climate change legislation could bring to the US in the next 10 years. I’ve included a snippet of their post below, but the full text can be found here.

The climate change legislation proposed by the Obama administration would generate $624 billion in revenue for the federal government over the next 10 years according to the administration's 2010 budget proposal. The cap-and-trade plan – or cap-and-tax plan as some call it – would place additional tax burdens on industry in the form of carbon emission fees.

Proponents see the measure as a way to help reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses which they view as the primary cause of global warming. Opponents on the other hand argue that those increased taxes will simply be passed on to consumers and result in a loss of jobs at a critical time in our weak economy.

According to the White House the bulk of the revenue would be returned to consumers by making permanent the tax credit Congress enacted earlier this year as part of the stimulus package. That credit resulted in a savings of $8 per week for the average American taxpayer. Other parts of the revenue would fund research and development of clean energy and climate science.

President Obama is hoping to have a deal in place on the climate change legislation before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) meeting in Copenhagen in December. However, the measure is receiving no backing from Republican lawmakers and many Democrats are no longer in support of the legislation. John Dingell, a Democratic Michigan Congressman said, “Nobody in this country realizes that cap-and-trade is a tax – and it’s a great big one.”

Those opposed are concerned about the cost to consumers as industry will almost certainly pass on the cost of meeting the requirements of the cap-and-tax. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently studied the measure and determined it would cost each household $1,400 per year and result in 1.9 million in job losses. Other estimates have ranged to as high as $3,000 per household and all far exceed the $8 per week tax credit the legislation would give consumers.