The Carbon Tax

With yesterdays announcement that the Carbon Tax will go ahead the online chatter about the issue has been in overdrive. As with any large issue everybody has their opinions and as this blog is my outlet I am going to voice mine.

I am against putting a price on carbon. Does charging big business to produce pollution then legitimise it's production?

As any environmental consultant would know, finding efficiencies and improvements in environmental performance costs money. It takes commitment from senior management and is generally driven by the bottom line. By increasing the production costs of 500 big polluters it is essentially taking away the incentive to find efficiencies. Would you bother spending money on improvements when you can pass the costs of pollution onto the consumer?

Why not provide tax incentives for spending profits on research and development?

I could go on and on all day about this one but I won't. I'm happy to discuss/debate the issue in the comments section though.