00:00:01
Clearly there is a big buzz um around
00:00:04
you know China's position over the past
00:00:06
few days saying that yeah there may be a
00:00:08
carbon tax in China. So everybody's
00:00:10
talking about it. I guess the question
00:00:12
is well what does that mean for China?
00:00:14
What does that mean for us here in the
00:00:15
US? Actually I would even rephrase the
00:00:18
question which is well how what are we
00:00:21
talking about here really? Uh a carbon
00:00:24
tax is not something new for China. The
00:00:26
uh the question would be how much is
00:00:27
that task task? So maybe if you remember
00:00:30
two years ago the finance minister of
00:00:32
China had already talked about a carbon
00:00:34
tax that when we talk about the range
00:00:38
was somewhat between one and eight US on
00:00:42
on a ton. So just to give you a
00:00:44
reference point in China now I haven't
00:00:46
checked this morning but the uh the ton
00:00:48
of coal for instance about 80 80 bucks.
00:00:51
So we're not talking about massive tax
00:00:53
especially if it's $1 per ton. Uh so the
00:00:57
second question would be how much how
00:00:58
big will that tax be? I mean that's
00:01:00
really for me that's really the uh the
00:01:01
big thing. Then the second question
00:01:03
would be who's going to actually
00:01:05
implement that and we've learned from
00:01:07
China the big question is typically the
00:01:09
implementation side. So it's done now at
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the at the central government level most
00:01:14
likely they will have the provinces to
00:01:16
establish this this these scheme and
00:01:18
then the question is well who's going to
00:01:20
collect the money? How where is that
00:01:23
money going to go? how is that money
00:01:25
going to be spent? So that's a big
00:01:27
question. Then the third question to me
00:01:29
is who's going to actually pay that
00:01:32
carbon tax at the end of the day. Uh if
00:01:35
you the number is somewhere between 30
00:01:37
and 40% of uh exports here. So most of
00:01:41
that here in the US. So at the end of
00:01:43
the day, carbon tax in China may
00:01:46
actually means increase price for
00:01:50
American customers which is interesting
00:01:53
due to the intelligency of the world
00:01:55
today. So that's uh to me that that's a
00:01:57
big picture we face and obviously
00:01:59
hopefully maybe that will trigger some
00:02:01
uh interest in the US Congress and to do
00:02:03
something more in that space as well. If
00:02:05
China does it maybe the US can do it as
00:02:07
well.
00:02:11
[Music]
