Reduce pollution or pay the price

[MotherBear]

Pollution to cost under Government's climate change plan
1:20PM Thursday September 20, 2007

The Government's bid to tackle climate change - issued this morning - warns individuals and businesses to reduce pollution or pay the price.

Capping greenhouse emissions would be a significant part of the seven-year plan, Prime Minister Helen Clark said.

"It is important that we put a price on greenhouse gas pollution to encourage businesses and households to become more energy efficient," she said.

The Greens say climate policy proposals announced today lack urgency and contain gaping holes.

Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons slammed Labour for putting off the most difficult decisions about who gets free credits and how many are allocated until after the election and said Parliament would want to know those details before passing legislation.

More here .

[MotherBear]

'Breathing tax' to tackle climate change
The Press | Thursday, 20 September 2007

Joggers, cyclists and swimmers, watch out. Your carbon dioxide emissions could be taxed next.

The Government will today announce how it will tackle climate change through an emissions trading scheme.

Yesterday, British peer, media commentator and climate change expert Viscount Monckton of Brenchley pitched in with some advice for the Government.

He recommends:

A tax on jogging, cycling and swimming "because sportsmen breathe out more carbon dioxide than the rest of us".

A bread levy "because the holes in bread are made by carbon dioxide from baking powder".

A fizzy drinks volumetric charge, calculated by counting the size and quantity of carbon dioxide bubbles emitted when the can is opened.

A Champagne "super tax", levied at five times the fizzy drinks charge "because tax is all about making the rich poor without making the poor rich".

Monckton said the Government was at last making real "the dream of every tyrant ? to tax the very air that we breathe".

"From now on, every time you exhale you will be paying through the nose for it, literally as well as metaphorically," he said.

The planned cap-and-trade policy was "silly" and exploited "needless public alarm about global warming".

"None of these suggestions is as silly as the carbon trading which the Government proposes," he said.

From here .