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Climate-threatened Bangladesh to impose carbon tax in June

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DHAKA, May 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Bangladesh is set to impose its own carbon tax on fuel next month – despite the hugely climate-vulnerable country producing relatively tiny per capita emissions.

The tax is expected to be put in place on June 1 as part of the country’s annual budget and will be part of a larger bundle of “green” measures, Nojibur Rahman, chair of the National Board of Revenue, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.

Many businesses and environmental groups have welcomed the plan, saying that Bangladesh – one of the countries considered most threatened by climate change impacts – needs to make a strong statement as governments like that in the United States pull back from action on climate change.

The new tax may not make any significant contribution to achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping average global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, they said.

But “when a country pollutes, the other countries are also affected. So, we need to reduce carbon emission as much as possible and imposing a tax is only way to do it,” said Abdul Matlub Ahmad, outgoing president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

He said the tax would not only raise the price of using fossil fuels but the added income could help push more use of renewable energy.

“If the government wants to cut the import duty on environment-friendly renewable energy products, it needs to charge taxes on polluters,” he said in a telephone interview.

Bangladesh produces about 0.44 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person, much lower than the United States’ 16.4 tonnes, Australia’s 16.3 tonnes and Qatar’s whopping 40.5 tonnes, according to World Bank figures.

RISING RISKS

Carbon taxes – which raise the cost of using fossil fuels by creating a charge for the climate damage they do – are one of the simplest, most market-friendly ways of driving climate action, experts say.

But they have proved politically tricky to put in place, and not just in poorer parts of the world where incomes are low and making fuel more expensive can be politically risky.

But low-lying Bangladesh, which faces huge risks from sea level rise, worsening storms, floods, droughts and other climate change impacts, has made a name for itself as an international leader in climate action, particularly in terms of innovative adaptation to climate change.

“Although our contribution to climate change is very nominal, we are one of the worst victims of climate change. Aware of the problem, we have the most successful and best climate change programmes the world has so far witnessed in any country,” Finance Minister A.M.A. Muhith, said earlier this month at a Dhaka summit on climate change and disaster risk reduction.

While it seeks international finance to help with programmes to address climate change, Bangladesh also has paid for projects out of its own nationally funded climate change fund.


M.A. Matin, general secretary of the Bangladesh Poribesh Andolon (Bangladesh Environment Movement), said in a telephone interview that any carbon tax would need to be accompanied a “long-term carbon reduction plan” from the government.

In the short term, higher taxes on industry can drive up production costs, with those costs passed on to consumers. That might mean “it’s not a right method for reducing emissions,” he said.

Md. Khalequzzaman, a Bangladeshi professor at Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania, said he believed that in a poor nation like Bangladesh industry – rather than consumers – should bear the cost of the new tax.

“I feel that the financial beneficiaries of carbon emissions should bear the tax as a part of their corporate social responsibility. The ordinary people should not be burdened with the additional cost of using power,” he said in an interview.

He suggested that alongside imposing the carbon tax, the government should look at developing renewable sources of energy in the country.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/bangladesh-climatechange-carbontax-idUKL8N1IO4DM
 
Ehhh.....this will only hurt the industries. We need to give businesses tax break to make the country more investment friendly. Imposing new taxes will only discourage investments.
 
Is the investment worth the environmental risk though?
For other countries they sure are. Quality of life cannot be significantly improved without industrializing the country. For that we have to do our share of damage to the environment. We have to take care of ourselves before taking care of the environment.(Bangladesh is not going under water anytime soon). 30-40 years later green energy will have come a long way to be used industrially without requiring huge land. But now we can't depend on green energy. So we have to make sure that we have a much better economy in 30-40 years. Then we can shut down the environment damaging plants and replace them with solar plants. Heck we may even build highways with solar panels. But right now we shouldn't look to decrease our carbon emissions specially not in a way that harms our industries.
 
Ehhh.....this will only hurt the industries. We need to give businesses tax break to make the country more investment friendly. Imposing new taxes will only discourage investments.

Carbon tax is a big scam to begin with. BD bureaucracy probably got attracted to it like moth to flame.
 
For other countries they sure are. Quality of life cannot be significantly improved without industrializing the country. For that we have to do our share of damage to the environment. We have to take care of ourselves before taking care of the environment.(Bangladesh is not going under water anytime soon). 30-40 years later green energy will have come a long way to be used industrially without requiring huge land. But now we can't depend on green energy. So we have to make sure that we have a much better economy in 30-40 years. Then we can shut down the environment damaging plants and replace them with solar plants. Heck we may even build highways with solar panels. But right now we shouldn't look to decrease our carbon emissions specially not in a way that harms our industries.
Whatever it is, I hope it's not over done. This country is already environment is already pretty bad. The urban areas are in particular are in terrible shape.

Carbon tax is a big scam to begin with. BD bureaucracy probably got attracted to it like moth to flame.
In what way?
 
In what way?

Essentially going by a tax methodology rather than incentive methodology for something that has largely not been conclusively proven (anthropogenic global warming).

Taxes are easy for govt + bureaucratic structures, bad for the economy (they essentially make the argument that the govt is a good allocator of resources, which it largely isn't even in the developed world).

Incentives are overall better route for the economy, but much harder for govts (esp when it comes to planning their future s̶t̶e̶a̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ err growth) because they need better internal focus/prioritisation etc of an existing financial structure (without resorting to increasing taxes somewhere else).

Its why you see taxes been added and increased, rarely reduced or taken away....and taxes (by % volume) are almost always based on flimsy evidence for their requirement in the first place....but more on the "govt knows better".

Developing economies its even a bigger scam to have a carbon tax, per capita the carbon footprint is tiny and the sensitivity of wealth creation by energy use is much much larger than developed countries to begin with.
 
Essentially going by a tax methodology rather than incentive methodology for something that has largely not been conclusively proven (anthropogenic global warming).

Taxes are easy for govt + bureaucratic structures, bad for the economy (they essentially make the argument that the govt is a good allocator of resources, which it largely isn't even in the developed world).

Incentives are overall better route for the economy, but much harder for govts (esp when it comes to planning their future s̶t̶e̶a̶l̶i̶n̶g̶ err growth) because they need better internal focus/prioritisation etc of an existing financial structure (without resorting to increasing taxes somewhere else).

Its why you see taxes been added and increased, rarely reduced or taken away....and taxes (by % volume) are almost always based on flimsy evidence for their requirement in the first place....but more on the "govt knows better".

Developing economies its even a bigger scam to have a carbon tax, per capita the carbon footprint is tiny and the sensitivity of wealth creation by energy use is much much larger than developed countries to begin with.

Exactly what do you need for it to be proven then? The science case for it is already strong enough. You do have a point about carbon emissions and developing economies.
 
Exactly what do you need for it to be proven then? The science case for it is already strong enough. You do have a point about carbon emissions and developing economies.

Thats a whole different conversation that will take too long to explain here fully. The crux of the matter is that I don't deny global warming is occuring, my issue is the correlation with human activity is nowhere near clear....and the fact that correlation is not causation anyway. The sensitivity analysis for example is still coming in and there is much still being figured out regarding the statistical analysis and modelling based on that (confidence limits never mentioned etc given the reliability of the ice core and other source data and "best guesses" regarding the coefficients regarding them).

Here is an interesting article on just one of the issues, the extended comments are especially interesting:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10...o2-actually-cause-global-significant-warming/

Combine that with possible political forcing of results:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...rs-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

and something seems fishy to me.
 
Thats a whole different conversation that will take too long to explain here fully. The crux of the matter is that I don't deny global warming is occuring, my issue is the correlation with human activity is nowhere near clear....and the fact that correlation is not causation anyway. The sensitivity analysis for example is still coming in and there is much still being figured out regarding the statistical analysis and modelling based on that (confidence limits never mentioned etc given the reliability of the ice core and other source data and "best guesses" regarding the coefficients regarding them).

Here is an interesting article on just one of the issues, the extended comments are especially interesting:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/10...o2-actually-cause-global-significant-warming/

Combine that with possible political forcing of results:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...rs-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

and something seems fishy to me.

That's it? Wattsupwiththat and Daily Mail?

Your first link has a flaw in its analysis from the beginning. It's focusing just on Northern Hemisphere data, there's a lot more you should focus on if you want to arrive at a more grounded conclusion. Additionally, the northern hemisphere temperature data used is anomaly data. By using anomaly data it removes the annual cycle. By comparison, the data used for CO2 and Ozone uses absolute data. The latter on the other hand keeps annual cycles for use. By comparing 2 different kinds of data it cannot be used to conclude a relationship of annual CO2, Ozone, and variations in temperature.

Your latter link made a few headlines in right wing media outlooks. Then got quickly debunked already been debunked.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-mail-sundays-astonishing-evidence-global-temperature-rise
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/science/2015-climate-study-data.html?_r=0
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpr...ose-david-rose-does-not-understand-baselines/
http://icarus-maynooth.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/on-mail-on-sunday-article-on-karl-et-al.html?spref=tw
http://www.factcheck.org/2017/02/no-data-manipulation-at-noaa/
 
That's it? Wattsupwiththat and Daily Mail?

Your first link has a flaw in its analysis from the beginning. It's focusing just on Northern Hemisphere data, there's a lot more you should focus on if you want to arrive at a more grounded conclusion. Additionally, the northern hemisphere temperature data used is anomaly data. By using anomaly data it removes the annual cycle. By comparison, the data used for CO2 and Ozone uses absolute data. The latter on the other hand keeps annual cycles for use. By comparing 2 different kinds of data it cannot be used to conclude a relationship of annual CO2, Ozone, and variations in temperature.

Your latter link made a few headlines in right wing media outlooks. Then got quickly debunked already been debunked.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-mail-sundays-astonishing-evidence-global-temperature-rise
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/science/2015-climate-study-data.html?_r=0
https://andthentheresphysics.wordpr...ose-david-rose-does-not-understand-baselines/
http://icarus-maynooth.blogspot.com.au/2017/02/on-mail-on-sunday-article-on-karl-et-al.html?spref=tw
http://www.factcheck.org/2017/02/no-data-manipulation-at-noaa/

You disprove so called right wing media by quoting left wing MSM? Okey.

Like I said this is not a conversation for this thread (thrusting media wars of claims, counter claims and counter-counter claims). I am just informing you the model is nowhere near robust to be basing the level of taxes govt bureaucracy want to.

I also did say this was just a couple examples of many....you would find a lot more in the comments section if you bothered reading further....rather than saying "that's it?" There are plenty of sensitivity analysis out there that expose many other coefficient fudge factors...based on "best guesses" rather than evidence. Onus is on you to go look them up....I'm not going to waste time figuring out what you count as "right wing" and "debunked"....on the basis of what the MSM tells you.

By comparison, the data used for CO2 and Ozone uses absolute data.

Are their associated coefficients (w.r.t anthropogenic correlation) absolute? Are they even relative? If so what's their C.L esp with regards to the scant base modelling of something as large and complicated as planet earth? You obviously haven't even looked into those. Anyways we can agree to disagree and move on.

Besides, for BD the bigger scam is definitely related to it being much higher economic output/increase of energy use (even carbon based) anyway (this thread).
 
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You disprove so called right wing media by quoting left wing MSM? Okey.

I also did say this was just a couple examples of many....you would find a lot more in the comments section if you bothered reading further....rather than saying "that's it?" There are plenty of sensitivity analysis out there that expose many other coefficient fudge factors...based on "best guesses" rather than evidence. Onus is on you to go look them up....I'm not going to waste time figuring out what you count as "right wing" and "debunked"....on the basis of what the MSM tells you.

Outside of NYT which one of those links is MSM? One is literally a blog powered by Blogger that's run by a University. Is that part of the MSM? Besides NYT, Daily Mail is more popular than any of those other sites. It's more MSM than any of the other sites. Not to mention Daily "Fail" has a rather well deserved low reputation. Especially in regards to science. John J Bates had no evidence and nothing to prove for his claims. Anyway, Same goes for Watts Up With That. Why should I waste my time reading over 400 comments on a website run by a man who has no degree whatsoever. Literally nothing.

Are their associated coefficients (w.r.t anthropogenic correlation) absolute? Are they even relative? If so what's their C.L esp with regards to the scant base modelling of something as large and complicated as planet earth?
Yes and yes. Based on the data? Yes. C.L. ranges anywhere from 95-99%.

If we must agree to disagree so be it. But do not pretend that Daily Mail is a reliable source for science.
 
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One is literally a blog powered by Blogger that's run by a University.

I've seen blogs run by universities that post all kinds of crap up....and they don't show any signs of stopping either. Including that 9/11 was a controlled demolition and that Trump has less than 0.1% chance of winning the presidency. I'd rather go to the actual model concept/analysis and poke holes right there rather than ranking which presenter is more or less believable.....too many have an agenda these days.

Yes and yes.

Based on the data? Yes. C.L. ranges anywhere from 95-99%.

Haha....so wrong. Ranges anywhere between?

Even with the simplified model, I suggest you look at the scope (intervals) of the prediction of this 95% and 99% CL....and no they are not "ranges". You pick a CL to get the associated CI (backworking is done much later to gauge error, bias etc). These particular CLs are just significant in the normal distribution analysis regarding S.Ds (esp 95%) and thus have a legacy in their use in statistics....they are not derived from the data being collected whatsoever. Their interval sizes will give you a clue about model precision even in its limited nature now (esp taking into account what 0.1 C changes are supposed to do to sea levels, salinities etc)

You do understand the limits of the current modelling? If you have a restricted, simplified model, you can indeed get a much higher C.L for a tight C.I (assuming you have some basis to make these judgements).

But I am not talking about what the IPCC puts out as a interval, I am talking about the bayesian approach to this model in the first place...making a model based on an unknown ratio of known/unknown (other than its most likely very limited) in itself brings about a fundamental inherent problem....i.e we do not know the overall relevance of the C.L in the end as it applies to the whole system....given we are only basing our projections on the time-dependent data we have access to, which fundamentally is a subset (with unknown set size) of all relevant data.

So the correct (neutral) answer is that we don't know (and have no way to estimate) the actual overall relevance of the projection given by the IPCC right now esp with regards to anthropogenic global warming (given not only the modelling of a planet but the local spatial environment it is in)....and wont know for a very very long time if at all. If you want to force the ratio of model/ actual system correlation to be as close to 1, you are biased....same if you want to force it to zero. It is a number we simply do not know at this stage. You will need to go through statistics fundamentally and also read up the sensitivity analysis of global warming in detail I am afraid. Not take statements verbatim because they are from x,y,z blog from a university.

Anyway, Same goes for Watts Up With That. Why should I waste my time reading over 400 comments on a website run by a man who has no degree whatsoever. Literally nothing.

Why not look at the author of the article rather than "who runs it". You will be surprised to see how many people run main stream media websites that have no degrees "whatsoever"....it doesn't inherently disprove the content that people produce for them.

The whole point like I have been trying to get through to you is that modelling a subset of data based on availability is not going to produce an inherently accurate projection....when you know it is a subset (and a small one) of all relevant data to the system.
 
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I've seen blogs run by universities that post all kinds of crap up....and they don't show any signs of stopping either. Including that 9/11 was a controlled demolition and that Trump has less than 0.1% chance of winning the presidency. I'd rather go to the actual model concept/analysis and poke holes right there rather than ranking which presenter is more or less believable.....too many have an agenda these days.

What University? Is it accredited? Because I'm sure all Universities do the same thing. Why should a 9/11 conspiracy theory disprove anything? Especially in regards to Daily Mail which is clearly agenda driven and has written plenty of articles based in pseudo-science. If you don't trust that one blog, then read another link. Why the double standard then?

Haha....so wrong. Ranges anywhere between?

Even with the simplified model, I suggest you look at the scope (intervals) of the prediction of this 95% and 99% CL....and no they are not "ranges". You pick a CL to get the associated CI (backworking is done much later to gauge error, bias etc). These particular CLs are just significant in the normal distribution analysis regarding S.Ds (esp 95%) and thus have a legacy in their use in statistics....they are not derived from the data being collected whatsoever. Their interval sizes will give you a clue about model precision even in its limited nature now (esp taking into account what 0.1 C changes are supposed to do to sea levels, salinities etc)

You do understand the limits of the current modelling? If you have a restricted, simplified model, you can indeed get a much higher C.L for a tight C.I (assuming you have some basis to make these judgements).

But I am not talking about what the IPCC puts out as a interval, I am talking about the bayesian approach to this model in the first place...making a model based on an unknown ratio of known/unknown (other than its most likely very limited) in itself brings about a fundamental inherent problem....i.e we do not know the overall relevance of the C.L in the end as it applies to the whole system....given we are only basing our projections on the time-dependent data we have access to, which fundamentally is a subset (with unknown set size) of all relevant data.

So the correct (neutral) answer is that we don't know (and have no way to estimate) the actual overall relevance of the projection given by the IPCC right now esp with regards to anthropogenic global warming (given not only the modelling of a planet but the local spatial environment it is in)....and wont know for a very very long time if at all. If you want to force the ratio of model/ actual system correlation to be as close to 1, you are biased....same if you want to force it to zero. It is a number we simply do not know at this stage. You will need to go through statistics fundamentally and also read up the sensitivity analysis of global warming in detail I am afraid. Not take statements verbatim because they are from x,y,z blog from a university.

I meant that ranges based on various studies. If we use an example of the IPCC confidence level of humans being the main cause of Global Warming it is 95%. But, if you're only belief is that we just don't know and we should simply maintain the status quo, then that is a poor argument on its own. None the less, if there is an issue with the IPCC's climate predictions is that they're too conservative and optimistic.

I
Why not look at the author of the article rather than "who runs it". You will be surprised to see how many people run main stream media websites that have no degrees "whatsoever"....it doesn't inherently disprove the content that people produce for them.

The whole point like I have been trying to get through to you is that modelling a subset of data based on availability is not going to produce an inherently accurate projection....when you know it is a subset (and a small one) of all relevant data to the system.
I already did and I wasn't impressed with what he wrote. And Anthony Watts literally has no degree whatsoever. Not a BS in geology or even a BA in Medieval Literature. As to be expected from a person who had this in his blog. Though please point out someone in a MSM link that I posted where a person had no degree whatsoever.
 
I meant that ranges based on various studies.

Uh they dont. You go in with a CL...you don't come out with one. 95% and 99% are common for "high level"....there is no "range" in between them.

Climate "models" have predicted global cooling before at high CL before as well. The inherent problem is the same with all of them, we have no closed set of relevant factors for planet/space modelling (that too for different time length sensitivities) for adequate resolution of singular variables and we don't even have an inkling of the size of the set or its nature (open/closed/semi etc). Yet we have MSM reports in 2007 saying that sea ice would completely disappear by 2013.

https://www.thegwpf.com/arctic-ice-rebounds-top-scientists-predict-period-global-cooling/

Have no interest in continuing this any further....guess you will have to wait for the reality to unfold (and IPCC has put a time frame as short as 10 - 15 years for their CI so we can call it relatively quickly indeed esp with a new period of solar cycles kicking in from about 2020 that other scientists say will cause global cooling). It will be a battle of sensitivities in the end....a modelling nightmare.

One last example of the problem with the current sensitivity coefficients:

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/34/E3501.full.pdf

It's no surprise given the width of the CI the IPCC is modelling with what they have in the first place. Bayes theorem has very interesting commentary on that phenomenon esp w.r.t the effect of increasing the number of available factors in the observation. But you have not picked up a book on it so I have no real desire to lay it all out for you. You can stay content with whatever the IPCC spoon-feeds you.

If we use an example of the IPCC confidence level of humans being the main cause of Global Warming it is 95%.

With a terrible interval width....thus a problematic model (esp given the time and data cycles in question). Like saying I am 95% confident this grain of sand will blow from A to B....when the system is a beach.

But, if you're only belief is that we just don't know and we should simply maintain the status quo, then that is a poor argument on its own.

The govt is a terrible agent at changing the status quo....especially through taxes.

None the less, if there is an issue with the IPCC's climate predictions is that they're too conservative and optimistic.

Sure whatever you say. You are obviously the expert.
 

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