Sunday, November 16, 2008

The Course of Proposed Action

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Action: Solar Conversion of households

Solution: Government loans recoverable through personal tax and / or upon sale of house.

Action Closure of CBD to daytime traffic

Solution Closure of CBD between 07.00am – 7.00pm, improved public

transportation & allowing electric vehicles. Parking sites for
electric vehicles with recharge facility.

Action Conversion of Schools to Solar energy

Solution: Costs met from infrastructure and building funds, will allow schools to generate

income for the school during holidays through on selling to electric grids.

Action: Allowing electric scooters to be used in suburbs without registration or licence

requirements

Solution Govt to legalise electric scooters for road use without registration or licence

requirements

Action: Giving our Farmers a way out of financial trouble

Solution: Guiding entities interested in Solar or Wind Farming to lease arrangements with

farmers currently requiring Govt assistance.


Then we have street lighting, telephone boxes, sports oval lighting Government buildings all of which can be converted to alternative energy.

So what are the drawbacks, the initial cost of course is a drawback, this is where the Government needs to show the way and provide a scheme to help all.

The one thing they must not do is limit it to socio-economic groups, for a bold plan to reduce emissions to work, we need to forget about means testing the assistance to install conversions.

However, instead make the repayment terms match the financial circumstances of the people involved. This will ensure we all convert and this is a must to ensure a national action plan that will show the world that Australia is able to address the hard issues with true economic leadership as well as the easy.

I am unable to provide specific costing for these Actions and Solutions , however, I believe I have shown how to make a appropriate impact on emission reductions without making the public pay higher taxes as would be the case as a result of a ETS which does not in fact address the problem at the core and therefore is an inadequate proposal for it’s purpose in Australia.

It should be noted that I am not suggesting a mass giveaway by the Government, but instead a series of Government loans with simple recovery solutions. This will allow near to immediate reductions of Emissions, generate employment in the alternate energy companies, reduce household costs effectively in a shorter time period, force current fossil fueled Electricity suppliers to action changes in their production almost immediately.

It would be easy to service as the Government would be able to recover it’s debt through personal taxation or at the time of sale of the property involved. It would however be obligated to provide special funding grants to hospitals, schools etc to assist with their conversion. Due to the capacity of schools to generate income during holiday periods, this could be offset against their funding providing savings back to the Government..

As can be seen a majority of the funding the Government will supply is recoverable through the taxes of the individuals who actually have benefited. This makes it unusual as it is fair on the taxpayers who have not benefited from these loans, or have already repaid their loans. It is not unfair to those that have taken the initiative and already converted their homes without Government assistance, as these people will not be required to pay higher taxes to assist those that have not already converted.

Even the School conversions will provide long term Government savings to the funding they will require, due to the generation of income during school holidays.

Therefore apart from the initial short term capital required by the Government to fund these measures, generally the overall impact will be minimal over the long term due to the repayable nature of these loans.

Kevin

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