Where Chubais, there are requisitions
Not all that gold ...
Anatoly Borisovich, whom the author had to deal with more than once at the beginning of his journalistic career, has long painfully resembled that ruler from a fairy tale who, with one touch, turned everything into gold. It’s great for Chubais to turn any good undertaking into a semblance of a commercial project. Why in the likeness? Yes, because people are not just making money, they are actually robbing.
The next innovation, which happened with the light hand of the current head of the most advanced of Russian corporations - Rusnano, became known the other day. Most of the Russians these days closed the season at the dachas, and the world was concerned about the end of the endless saga called Brexit, the war in northern Syria, and worried about the fate of Catalonia, especially Barcelona.
Nevertheless, the media could not miss the proposal of the Ministry of Economic Development on a new environmental tax. The green topic is now in vogue, young Greta Tunberg has already been called an agent of the CIA or our KGB / FSB, and Donald Trump is not kicked by the lazy only for kicking out the Paris Agreement.
What was so unexpected, or rather, terrible, that was suggested to us from the Ministry of Economic Development? Nothing special - just a new tax. It is officially called carbon, but journalists immediately associated it with the name of one of the most prominent reformers of our time. With the name of Anatoly Chubais. The collection was called “the Chubais tax”, although personally about it a little lower.
In principle, the document delivered by the department of Maxim Oreshkin makes a very sensible proposal. It is not just that the head of the Ministry of Economic Development has long been included in the list of ministers most positively assessed by the public. To begin with, experts from the Ministry of Economic Development offer to determine the total maximum allowable amount of direct greenhouse gas emissions for enterprises, and then introduce a fee for exceeding such a threshold.
Specifically, now we are talking about the volume in 150 thousand tons of CO2 equivalent. This is quite a lot and can affect only large enterprises of the fuel and energy complex. But not only them. Both the state district power station, thermal power station, and even hydroelectric power stations, which have problems with emissions cleaning, are not, so to say, subject to a penalty tariff.
The latter circumstance seems to have led to the fact that the draft carbon tax bill has been criticized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. It is interesting that the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Alexander Shokhin, like many members of the Union itself, are not particularly disloyal to Chubais, but, from the point of view of the experts of this Union, the tax named after Anatoly Borisovich will certainly cause an increase in tariffs for housing and communal services and accelerate inflation.
It is appropriate to recall here that it was the head of Rusnano, Anatoly Chubais, who, in the summer of this year, came up with the initiative to introduce the so-called carbon tax. By encouraging industrialists to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It’s impossible not to admit (you won’t deny our privatizer intuition): after all, the “Greta Tunberg project”, now having unprecedented power, had just begun to collect its “green glasses”. But now the head of Rusnano can once again show himself to the West as the great Russian reformer.
It would seem that what matters to the head of the most technologically advanced of the Russian corporations, which has everything in its openwork with emissions, is environmental problems? And it is such that due to the new tax it will be possible to stimulate not only a reduction in emissions, but also the production of various "ecological" goods, of course, based on nanotechnology. Here Chubais is in no hurry with the specifics, and the scheme itself is also not promoting too much. Apparently, at the moment it is more important to promote the tax itself.
"It is a pity only - to live in this wonderful time ..."
Now only a few will remember how this poetic line ends: “It will not be necessary - neither to me, nor to you.” If the “Chubais tax” is nevertheless introduced, then most of us, including the “privatizer” himself, will most likely be able to survive before this. However, there are very big doubts that in general someone will live to those happy years when new requisitions will bring not only income to the treasury, but also real environmental benefits.
In response to the long-standing proposal of the head of Rusnano, which has now become the legislative initiative of the federal department, the first response from the RSPP committee on ecology and nature management has already been heard. Maxim Dovgyallo, a member of this committee, immediately reminded that heat supply in Russia is paid at tariffs, to which you will have to add the “Chubais tax”.
As a result, the introduction of a new tax will immediately affect not only the cost of housing and communal services, but also cause an increase in prices for metallurgical products, as well as an increase in the cost of transport services. It is clear that all this together will lead to a new round of inflation, with which so stubbornly and so consistently, and mainly at the expense of ordinary citizens, our Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance fought.
Is it any wonder now that the version of the bill developed by the Ministry of Economic Development was not supported by the Federation Council? In my opinion, it’s worth it, because often Russian senators work on the principle of “they don’t ask us.” Now, it is they who doubt very much that the measures proposed by the Ministry of Economic Development will have any effect. Except, of course, billions in fees to the federal treasury, which has been crowded for so long. One of the senators rightly noted that laws should stimulate the transition to energy-efficient technologies, but not create new fees and payments for businesses.
Nobody argues that the development of modern “green” technologies should be paid primarily by those who cause the greatest harm to the environment. But in the scheme, which is proposed with the submission of Chubais and the Ministry of Economic Development, payments are actually divided into all Russians. Doesn’t resemble anything? Yes, these are vouchers, just the opposite. They were given to everyone at the beginning of the 90's, and the favorites took off the cream.
If we are talking about environmental fees, is it not better to go along the path that has long been valid for motorists. This is when the size of the tax increases sharply with increasing capacity of the limousine, and the collection itself does not affect any tariffs in any way. Neither directly nor indirectly. By the way, indirect environmental tax is also quite possible - in the form of excise taxes on the same emissions. It’s easier to collect them, and with the stimulation of reducing emissions or cleaning them, everything is in order.
The authors of the bill have already made a proposal to send the funds received from the Chubais tax to a certain Fund to support the implementation of projects to reduce emissions and increase greenhouse gas absorption. Again, painfully reminiscent of either Rusnano or Skolkovo. This is in the sense of the ability to master budget funds nicely. Only some kind of "green" national project was missing. That's where there will be expanse not only for officials, but also for Chubais and his associates.
The Paris syndrome
In response to criticism of the “Chubais tax”, the Ministry of Economic Development already reminded that this is only one of the components of the Russian low-carbon policy. The Ministry of Energy has already decided that each ruble of the new collection will increase the energy tariff immediately by 1,2 rubles. And all this for the sake of Russia fulfilling and even exceeding the standards of the latest UN climate summit?
Greta Tunberg - the greenest girl in the world
In this regard, it remains to be recalled that this summit was held in Paris in the 2015 year, when the same Greta Tunberg hardly had an idea about the threat of global warming, about industrial emissions and how they are related to each other. Now, the insanely crazy Swedish girl seems to be well aware that a framework agreement in Paris, which not only determined greenhouse gas emissions after the 2020 year, but also agreed on measures to prevent climate change, was signed by all 196 representatives of the participating countries.
In Paris, politicians are known to have agreed that 100 billions of dollars will be allocated to developing countries to solve climate problems. The Paris Agreement was to replace the well-known Kyoto Protocol, adopted back in 1997 in addition to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
In accordance with the provisions of the protocol, developed countries and countries with economies in transition must reduce or stabilize emissions of greenhouse gases that are harmful to the environment. As you know, a full-fledged replacement did not work out, and then the USA, almost the main global air pollutant, completely refused the Paris agreements.
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