About 50 businesses have called on the government to have stricter targets for the energy sector by 2030. Although this sounds plausible , it fails in a big way, in that it fails to address the problem of how distorted the markets is in the first place.
With all the subsidies, grants and favours in planning and business setup costs, in the whole process of manufacture , and servicing of the new equipment may be causing more damage to the environment that it is solving.
Whist working within the present rules of business practice and governmental legislation , all manufacturing is distorted by damage caused by the extraction and employment of the natural resources in the first place. This damage to the environment is caused by the poor use of resources and also by the poor methods of the actual physical extraction of those resources , as there is little accountability in this area. for example the deep see horizon and Nigeria oil extraction , and not to mention Bhopal in India, but there are many more not reported or documented.
It is about time that we move the true cost of all this damage directly to the consumer by radical taxation reform , Rather than rewarding the business owners of such poor practices, Taxation should be place directly onto them at source , as a NRT, Natural Resource Tax,*. This would replace all existing taxes and remove the burden of taxation from the many to the few large businesses that control all the God given free natural resources.
This would enable all consumers and businesses to make real decisions on the on the way they purchase goods and services by the embedded NRT within them.
Such a fundamental change in taxation would bring a whole new range of businesses to the economy based on sound use of natural resources starting from the designers down to the consumer, and such a profound change would bring a bout a fairer society , as ll would be paying the real prices and thus paying for the real damage caused by the use and consumption of those resources.
Recycling and recovery of resources would become big businesses and may indeed work alongside the designer, to enable longevity of the resources employed in the manufacture of goods and services.
Tinkering with the edge of the system of how a few resources are used, will not change the fundamental way we all think , and it is this change in thought process that needs to change, to one of the saving and wise use of natural resources, based on real environmental damage and not of distortion of the marketplace by subsidies, grants, fraud and the like.Tinkering causes confusion in ever complicated tax and welfare systems and new ideas of simpler, fairer and more equal systems have to be introduced as many commentators are now asking for, but how?
Moving to NRT, would do away with the possibility of fraud and tax evasion, as inderviduals and many businesses would be liable to very little of the new tax, maybe NRT on land which would be like the present council tax , but paid by all who have land.
Governments of all colours need to address who should pay taxes , and I am suggesting that all should pay it evenly purely on the way they spend their wealth , and all would be responsible to spend wisely their wealth, as the most highly damaging resources would pass into the final price of the goods and services provided by higher end prices.
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