Treasury and China confirm our carbon tax money will go up in smoke

TREASURY has blown the whistle on the Gillard Government's clean energy slush - sorry, finance - fund. It has made it official.

Most if not all of the $10 billion of taxpayer money will be flushed straight down the toilet.

Further, the money will be wasted to absolutely no point, as we get further confirmation that China has no intention of seriously slowing the growth, far less actually cutting, its own emissions of carbon dioxide.

The increases in China's CO2 emissions over the next decade will completely dwarf any cuts in our emissions as a consequence of the Gillard-(Bob)Brown-(Christine)Milne carbon tax.

Indeed, the increases would completely dwarf our cuts even if we reduced our emissions all the way to zero.

In short, our cuts will achieve absolutely nothing. The $10 billion will be wasted to no point. The carbon tax will hurt industry and individuals to no point.

If increasing CO2 emissions are going to cause global warming, prepare for global warming.

Now Treasury didn't put it quite in the terms I've outlined at the start. That would have required honesty above and beyond the call of duty.

But it came very close. As close as it could for an organisation that has signed on to the global warming religion, and its associated absurd economic modelling. But retains some residual analytical integrity.

Treasury official David Nicol revealed to federal parliament earlier this week two critical features of the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).

First, that its budget factored in that 7.5 per cent of its total investment capital each year would "not be recovered." That is to say, lost.

So there, straight up, is an "official" statement that at least $750 million of the $10 billion is headed straight for the toilet.

Nicol described the 7.5 per cent as a "conservative margin." I suggest, with respect, he hasn't the faintest clue what he's talking about.

Pumping money out to myriad "alternative" energy fantasies takes us into totally uncharted waters.

How could anyone claim to have the faintest ability to declare that (at least) 92.5 per cent of such investments would prove successful.

That leads to the second disclosure: what Nicol defined as "successful." He said the CEFC would be charged with returning about 4 per cent.

Are you kidding me? To claim that a 4 per cent return would be "successful?" This is Treasury having a lend - almost literally - of Joe and Joanna public.

Even the National Broadband Network's equally absurd business case claimed to be based on generating a return of 7 per cent.

Given its monopolistic income-generating characteristics, 7 per cent could - just - be claimed as a sufficient return to justify the NBN investment.

If, of course, it was believable. It was not and increasingly is not.

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