Isramart : Exxon Says Australia Carbon Tax Preferable to Trading

Isramart news:
Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company, says a tax on carbon in Australia would be a better method to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions blamed for global warming.

“A carbon tax is more transparent to consumers, will achieve greater environmental benefits and is more difficult to manipulate than a cap-and-trade program,” John Dashwood, chairman of Exxon’s Australian unit, said in speech notes e- mailed ahead of an address today in Melbourne.

The nation’s Senate last week voted against the government’s proposed carbon-pollution reduction program, which includes plans for a carbon-trading system similar to one used in Europe. Australia, the biggest coal exporter, would seek cuts of between 5 percent and 15 percent in greenhouse-gas emissions from 2000 levels in the next decade under the draft law.

Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the government plans to reintroduce the legislation for a further Senate vote before the end of the year.

Exxon and its partners are spending about A$3 billion ($2.5 billion) developing the Kipper-Tuna and Turrum fields in the Gippsland Basin off Victoria state, Dashwood said. The projects will have a combined output of 1.6 million cubic feet of gas and 140 million barrels of oil and gas liquids, he said.

Scientists say emissions from fossil fuels such as oil and gas are one of the biggest contributors to the greenhouse effect, in which gases discharged by industries and vehicles trap heat near the earth’s surface.

Imposing a global carbon tax would ease pressure on the climate more cheaply than emissions trading, according to a study released last week by Danish professor Bjoern Lomborg.

A $0.50 tax for each ton of emissions may generate $1.51 in avoided climate damage, compared with costs as high as $68 per ton, resulting in 2 cents of avoided damage, under some emissions-mitigations models, the study said.