澳大利亚工党政府与反对党

澳大利亚工党政府与反对党
 

澳大利亚工党政府与反对党在应对气候变化和减少温室气体排放的问题上，采取了两种截然不同的策略。直接监管是联合政府和澳大利亚工党支持使用市场为基础的经济手段。直接监管几十年来一直处于环境法的首要部分，并构成了环境法律制度的核心(高登和皮尔)；并且经济手段和科学的进展，揭示了复杂的环境问题和影响生态系统和气候的因素（阅读4）。本文的目的是提供一个关于经济手段的优点的比较概述，财政手段和收费制度和市场创造，反对直接调控决定哪些系统将更有效地减少澳大利亚的温室气体排放。经过对这两种机制广泛的检查，本文认为直接监管有必要确定和执行的环境条件和标准，减少温室气体排放。

 

The Australian Labor Government And Opposition 
 

The Australian Labor Government and Opposition have adopted two contrasting strategies in their approach to climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Direct Regulation is the proposed mechanism for the Coalition Government and the Australian Labor Party supports the use of Market-based Economic Instruments. Direct Regulation has been at the forefront of environmental law for decades and constitutes the heart of the environmental legal system (Godden and Peel), while Economic Instruments were developed in response to scientific progression revealing the complexity of environmental issues affecting ecosystems and climates (Reading 4). The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative overview on the merits of two Economic Instruments, Fiscal Instruments and Charging Systems and Market Creation against Direct Regulation to determine which system would be more effective at reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. After extensive examination of both mechanisms this paper will argue that Direct Regulation suffers from a need to determine and enforce environmental conditions and standards in relation to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, it will also be argued that the carbon tax and emissions trading scheme will effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions by discouraging entities to pollute through increased costs of production and required carbon permits. The overall impact Economic Instruments and Direct Regulation have on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions however, is negatively impacted by the inclusion of perverse incentives that subsidise heavy polluters (reading 5).

 

Direct Regulation involves the enactment of laws set beside an environmental target, for example the reduction of emissions through improved technology, and subsequent penalties directly applied if a target is not adhered to (reading 5). This mechanism for the environmental protection is increasingly considered as out-dated and is progressively being replaced by Economic Instruments. Six economic instruments were analysed to gauge their effectiveness for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and revealed extensive legal frameworks for wide ranging environmental protection. For example, property-right mechanisms present an opportunity for people to conserve environmental resources through clear and enforceable property rights. Financial Instruments are suitable for mobilising supplementary financial resources for conservation and environmental protection. Liability Instruments impose civil liability and provide economic incentives to manage issues such as pollution and waste. Performance Bonds require a security deposit and will be refunded upon satisfactory completion of an environmental task. Deposit Refund Systems also require a security deposit and encourage the correct disposal of waste (Reading 5). These Instruments however, are not designed or suited for the specific task of reducing Australia's annual greenhouse gas emissions. Economic Instruments designed to tackle issues of climate change are Fiscal Instruments and Charging Systems, which encourages environmentally responsible behaviour through partial (or full) cost pricing (Carbon Tax) and Market Creation, which allows the Government to create a market such as Australia's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS). Their effectiveness at reducing emissions, along with Direct Regulation is significantly related to incentives, monitoring approaches and environmental conditions and standards.

 

Environmental conditions and standards can designate a means that must be followed by the authorisation holder such as the use of pollution control technology. Alternatively to this is setting environmental outcomes that essentially need to be/can be achieved. The issue between these two options is that one is prescriptive while the other is outcome based and enforcing conditions on the basis of what is required presents an easier option compared to environmental outcome enforcement. The prescription option does suffer in that it is by no means as flexible as an outcome based model.

 

These conditions and standards can come from two no Development-centred which is generally engineering based and Environmental-centred being structured around science. The Development-centred approach positively encourages research and development into more efficient process and control technologies. The Environmental-centred approach focuses more on environmental outcomes and respects the complexity of varied systems with the option also to be technology-forcing in the event where acceptable emissions levels cannot be met with existing technology.

 

直接调节——Direct Regulation

Direction regulation and state sanctions historically were essential in their ability to force industry to modify its habits and provided a tough disincentive regarding environmentally harmful activities. This regulatory approach was summarised as legislative command prohibiting environmental degradation and pollution, with related power used by the state as licences and penalties for non-compliance. In Australia, the most common form of Direct Regulation involves setting environmental targets, attached to legislated standards, with penalties at criminal or civil levels prescribed if standards are not met (reading 6). Simply put, the main aim is to restrict or prohibit activities that have the potential to cause environmental harm. This is achieved by setting environmental targets and ensuing penalties that will result if the target is not adhered to.

 

Direct regulation takes on an array of forms with environmental standards representing the most common type. In order to achieve specific environmental goals, these standards establish uniform requirements on a broad range of categories. The major categories include technology-based standards, performance-based standards, and process-based standards. An example of how these standards work can be seen with the less prominent design or specification standards where an approved technology is prescribed for an environmental problem or a particular industrial process. Furthermore, permits and licences are often used in the implementation of standards and generally target point sources of pollution. Pollutants are therefore allowably emitted by firms at specified levels proscribed in the relevant standards (reading 5). These standards outline the merits of Direct Regulation in that firms that emit greenhouse gases can be subject to state-centred legislative action and administrative enforcement on set environmental and emissions standards targets, development-centred technology-based performance standards and/or design or specification standards to regulate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions at both point and non-point sources.

 

经济手段——Economic Instruments

Market Creation - Emissions Trading Scheme

This section will discuss a generalised Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and not the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) due policy amendments presenting extensive compensation to emissions-intensive trade-exposed (EITE) industries and exemptions to the agricultural and forestry industries rendering the scheme unsuitable in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The Carbon Tax will also be discussed broadly on the basis of a potential tax as the implemented tax has included compensations such as the Steel Transformation Plan which is worth $300 million to provide transitional support for innovation and over the initial four years.

 

The ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the Australian Labor Government (ALP) in 2007 saw the proposal of an ETS, the CPRS. The ETS was originally favoured over a Carbon Tax based on its capacity to place a numerical cap on greenhouse gas emissions (reading 4). The purpose of an ETS is the allocation of tradeable rights to allow polluters to emit greenhouse gas emissions. Targets are generally required to be given to these emission sources, with permits acquired through auction or issue. The source of emissions then has the opportunity to buy permits or mitigate greenhouse gases depending on their standing and more importantly, permit prices on the indefinitely fluctuating emissions trading market. In short, tradeable rights allocation allows the regulatory agency to solve the absent market environmental problem through the creation of a surrogate market based on permits. The pure basis of an ETS therefore has the potential, both domestically and internationally, to significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions through a capped system that allows sources to purchase tradeable permits from a finite market or mitigate their emissions through improved practices in order to avoid purchasing market permits.

 

财政文书和收费制度-碳税——Fiscal Instruments and Charging Systems - Carbon

Fiscal instruments, such as the carbon tax, are detailed in economic theory as imposing significantly less costs on industry in achieving marked pollution reduction when compared to command and control regulations with the same goal (reading 5). Fiscal instruments and charge systems are employed to promote environmentally minded practices via cost pricing of production or consumption, which is simply an indirect economic approach with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the implementation of a tax (e.g., carbon tax). The initial benefit of a carbon tax over an ETS is price stability allowing industries and governments to prepare themselves with economic precision. The argument of familiarity, an appealing Direct Regulation trait, can also be applied to a carbon tax as the administrative structure of the tax is not a foreign notion to legislators and policy-makers (reading 4). This ultimately allows the quantity of emissions to fluctuate while the prices remain relatively fixed giving governments the opportunity to predict and allocate revenue accordingly. It is evident that a carbon price clearly has economic advantages through the familiarity of it being a tax and relatively simple implementation into the economy. We now examine the positive approaches the Australian Government has used in their recently introduced carbon tax.

 

Heavy polluters under the Australian Carbon Tax have a direct liability to the scheme, they must surrender to the scheme Clean Energy Regulator their permits (one tonne of carbon equals one permit) that equates to their emissions in the financial year and cannot be traded or purchased. If these liable entities surrender permits than they emit, they will have to compensate the shortfall by purchasing necessary permits at a charge 1.3 times the original cost. Initially, the price will be fixed at $23 per permit and will increase by 2.5 per cent per year until 2015. The carbon tax however, will officially become and ETS in 2015 with a semi-fluctuating permit price for the first 3 years as there will be a ceiling and floor price. Both the carbon tax and ETS aim to influence customer behaviour away from products that are emissions-intensive to suitable alternatives. The concept works by influencing the price of higher emissions products to make them less affordable for the consumer and ultimately encourages the producer to reduce the emissions-intensity of its products as it too will be less affordable. The theoretical outcome of this system is that the greenhouse gas emissions of Australia will be reduced. This approach to combating climate change supports the argued statement in that greenhouse gas emissions will be extensively targeted under a proposed carbon tax leading to improved practices to minimise and eliminate emissions.

 

结论——Conclusion

This paper has argued that Direct Regulation suffers from a need to determine and enforce environmental conditions and standards in comparison to both the carbon tax and an ETS. Furthermore, it has been argued that the carbon tax and/or ETS will effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the implementation of regulated carbon permits. These permits will increase the costs of emissions-intensive products and prompt industry to adopt environmentally friendly practices to reduce their costs by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. The Australian carbon tax will have a Clean Energy Regulator to monitor carbon permits in relation to an emitter's actual output of greenhouse gases in order to enforce correct practices. Direct Regulation has the ability to enforce legislative action and administrative enforcement on set environmental emissions standard targets, they fall short of both Economic Instruments in that their approach to greenhouse gas emissions only targets point source issues such as emissions-intensive equipment and technology. In addition, inadequate environmental conditions, standards and emissions monitoring further reduces the success of Direct Regulation in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

 

A reoccurring argument throughout environmental regulation studies that requires strong consideration is the inclusion of perverse incentives in both Direct Regulation and Economic Instruments. The success of these mechanisms is almost entirely influenced by compensation and exclusion of emissions-intensive trade-exposed (EITE) industries. It would be naive to assume that a scheme could be implemented without varied incentives and in fact, has the potential to be hindered if assistance is entirely excluded. The following suggestions must be considered to avoid discrediting the integrity of policy frameworks. Policy makers should include compensation, only if necessary, that assists in the initial stages of scheme implementation through technology improvement and intrinsically monitored to ensure funds are used as intended. Heavy emitters of greenhouse gases should fall under the enforcement of schemes and shall not receive any emissions exemptions. Tradable carbon permits shall be finite domestically and internationally, reduced in quantity each year and under no circumstances are free permits to be supplied to emitters as a form of amelioration. Finally, carbon permit (as part of a taxed system) shall be purchased by the emitters without compensation or supply of free permits at any stage of the scheme. These considerations may seem extreme but so are the impacts of increased emissions of greenhouse gases and an Australian can become part of the international solution via correct policy and law.