MERR5030 Managing Energy Resources And Regulations

The report helps in the overall analysis of the critically analyse the different environmental regulatory policy tools which can be used by the UK in order to different kinds of environmental objectives such as Carbon Tax and Cap and Trade. Furthermore, the evaluation of various differences along with effectiveness of these respective regulatory instruments is required to be done which will help in mitigating the overall impact of the change in climate and preventing the temperature from rising the above of 2?. The two policy instruments are required to be identified which will help in shaping the energy markets along with analysis of the overall impact of the management energy resources effectively as well.

Oil and Gas has tried to provide more than 72% of the primary energy of the United Kingdom in the year 2016. Furthermore, in the year 2016, this was being noticed that more than 51% of the oil was being imported with proper remainder from the domestic kind of production. On the other hand, more than 54% of the natural gas was being imported in the year 2016 with the remainder from the gas production in UK (Allan et al. 2014).

In the UK oil and gas industry, in both onshore and offshore has tried in employing more than 28000 individuals directly along with more than 14000 in relevant supply chains in the 2017 (He et al. 2015). The majority of the respective roles are in the offshore industry and the employment in the respective industry has fallen more than 27% since 2013. The authority of the oil and gas has tried in believing that oil and gas production of UK will re-enter decline following slight recent upturn.

There are various kinds of challenges for the oil and gas industry which are being majorly faced by offshore industry such as the following:

• The overall stage of the investment in UK continental shelf
• Furthermore, decline in the revenues of the different taxes, however the overall requirement for financial administration that ropes investment
• Rising pace of the decommissioning which helps in ensuring that the outstanding infrastructure helps to support the new kinds of developments wherein this is necessary (Dong et al. 2017)

On the other hand, there are different principal challenges for the entire onshore industry which is as follows:

• There is local opposition along with protests  (Zhang et al. 2016)
• Gaining the planning along with environmental permissions
• Ascertaining extent of economically extractable resource through exploration

In the recent years, this can be seen and analyzed that revenue from production of the entire oil and gas industry has fallen as there is falling in the overall production, much lower gas and oil prices along with higher deductible expenditure. Moreover, the rate of the revenue tax of the petroleum along with the different supplementary charges has cut substantially which helped in maximizing economic kind of recovery.

The below chart helps in showing the revenue from the oil and gas industry in the 1970/80 wherein this can be seen that the industry has tried to typically generate revenues for the Government, however the entire situation is complex in nature wherein there is falling of production and there is increase in decommissioning costs as well. There was huge increase in the overall revenue in the year 2008 and 2009 at £12.4 billion. Moreover, in the year 2016 and 2017, there was revenue generated from oil and gas industry which was -£316 million and this created negative impact on the cost of repayment of tax losses among the different oil and gas producers.

Carbon Tax is one of the taxes which is being levied on the content of the carbon of the fuels and this is in the form of the carbon pricing as well. The revenue which has been obtained with the respective tax is not utilized to properly compensate the different kinds of carbon emissions where tax is being levied (Rezai and Van der Ploeg 2016). Carbon is present in hydrocarbon fuel along with the different other products when combusted. With the implementation of the carbon tax, this helps in offering both economic and social benefits as this is the kind of tax which helps in increasing revenue without significantly altering economy while promoting the different kinds of objectives of the policy related to change in the climate.

With the accurate accomplishment of the carbon tax, the major purpose of the carbon tax is in plummeting the different unfavorable along with the harmful levels of the emissions related to carbon dioxide and this decelerating change in the climate along with the negative impacts on the environment along with these are potentially cost-effective in nature which will help in reducing the different green house emissions effectively. In the year 2012, United Kingdom was ranked 20^th out of the 33 richest countries in terms of the low usage of the electricity. Furthermore, in the year 2017, this was seen that UK jumped to 7^th position and UK tried and managed to perform the same by imposing the carbon tax.

A synthesis of the different kinds of empirical studies help in suggesting that the when the individuals do not feel that carbon tax will be sufficient in reducing the different emissions, then they try to prefer usage of the carbon pricing revenue which helps in subsiding low-carbon technologies along with research. For instance- United Kingdom has the target to reduce the emissions related to carbon by 80% by the year 2050 in comparison to the 1990 levels with different midway targets. Moreover, this can be identified that there are various UK Companies which pays price for the carbon which are emitting by them through EU’s emissions scheme of trading.

For the entire power sector of United Kingdom, the government tried to introduce the Carbon Price Support which assists in supplementing the carbon price of the European countries wherein the UK generators of power tried in order to pay smallest amount carbon price which is being referred to as the Carbon Price Floor. This concept was being introduced in the year 2013 at the rate of £16 (€18.05) per ton of CO2 and this was set in order to increase to £30 by the year 2020. However, on the other hand, government in UK most lately decided to cap carbon price floor at £18.08 till 2021 (Williams et al. 2014).

Therefore, from the above circumstances, this can be analyzed that the freezing of the price along with the low allowances of the trading price within the entire EU emissions trading system is meant that in the entire UK, the price of the carbon has remained lowered than this was expected and this is inconsistent in nature in meeting with the Paris Agreement along with the own targets of UK. In order to become more effective in their approach, this has been argued by many that the rate of CPS is required to be modified in order to become economy-wide carbon tax (Van Der Ploeg and Withagen 2014).

Additionally, this was seen and analyzed that in imposing the carbon tax, there were different issues which was faced by the different UK companies such as it imposed heavy administration costs as the carbon tax is expensive along with this carried risk of the increase in the costs which increased the different kinds of expenditures which were involved in the goods production or the delivery of the different services. The different organizations will be greatly affected by the carbon tax as there are different advantages along with disadvantages of the same in implementation of it in the different kinds of organizations in the United Kingdom.

 In the Cap and Trade System, this can be analyzed that the governments tries in putting firm kind of limit or cap on the overall level of the pollution causing from carbon from the different kinds of industries and this helps and assists in reducing the cap year after year which helps in reaching a set of target of the pollution (Marron and Toder 2014). When the cap decreases in each and every year, this assists in cutting total emissions from the different green house gases of the industry in order to limit to the set by the regulation and this forces the different polluters which will exceed their quota of emissions in order to buy or purchase the unused kind of quota from the other organizations as well (Xu, Xu and He 2016).

Furthermore, the government helps in creating along with distributing the quotas of pollution through auction which is the fairest technique. This helps in creating incentive to the different firms which helps in reducing the emissions and this will help them in selling rather than purchasing the pollution quotas (Liu and Lu 2015). Under the respective cap and trade system, this helps the market in determining the price of the different quotas in an appropriate manner. In this regard, the different kinds of emissions cap helps in ensuring that the total pollution goes down and the different companies are being provided with the economic kind of incentive in order to find the different better techniques which will help in reducing the emissions of the harmful greenhouse gases and support the clean kind of energy as well.

With the completion of the cap and trade system, this has been successfully applied by the different companies in UK which helped in reducing the emissions of the sulphur dioxide along with nitrous oxide which are the major two ingredients which are responsible for the acid rain (Murray and Rivers 2015). The European Union has applied the cap and trade system in place from 2005 which helped in reducing the emissions of the greenhouse gases from about 10000 large industrial kinds of emitters (Fahimnia et al. 2015). When United Kingdom tried to prefer the cap and trade as the carbon tool for pricing, wherein the different companies in the entire United Kingdom had to reduce the emissions of the different harmful chemicals and gases to less than 25% which is below 2000 levels till 2020.

Moreover, with the execution of cap and trade in different types of organizations in United Kingdom, this helped in promoting diversity and efficiency across the different organizations as this helps in limiting the release of the carbon into the atmosphere which will be helpful in managing the overall emissions and this serves as the overall source of the government revenue as well. With the execution of the same, this serves as the great source of revenue for the government which allows the government of United Kingdom in providing out with the credits of pollution to the different organizations which are being owned by latter (Liu et al. 2015).

On the other hand, with the implementation of the cap and trade, there are different kinds of disadvantages which are being faced by the different organizations. Firstly, this possibly passes the costs on to the different customers. One concern which is regarding the cap and trade policy is the different kinds of costs which are being added to the industry would be passed to customers which will be dangerous for them as the rate of tax is huge in nature (Li et al. 2018). Furthermore, with the implementation of the cap and trade, this will lead the different organizations in wrong kind of direction as the different organizations are expected to start using and utilizing the coal, gas along with oil and the result of these will be rise in the utilization of the different resources and this will create issues for the companies in paying such amount to the government.

These are the different differences along with the effectiveness of the usage along with the overall implementation of the carbon tax and the cap and trade regulatory policy tools by the government of United Kingdom which will be helpful in managing the different issues and difficulties in an efficient and appropriate manner which will be helpful in addressing the environmental objectives in United Kingdom (Beck et al. 2015). UK is calling for major changes and reforms in improving the different emissions which is the system related to cap and trade in order to tackle the climate change (Parry, Morris and Williams III 2015). The EU Emission Trading System helps in providing the different companies from heavy kinds of industries along with providing flexibility in the power sector in order to decide whether to invest in abatement of the carbon or to purchase the different kinds of emissions allowances to comply with as well.

There have been different and various kinds of discussions on which one is effective in nature: Carbon Tax or Cap and Trade. The most effective answer is that this totally depends on the design of the system as the entire design will help in determining the economic and environmental kind of effectiveness (Raux, Croissant and Pons, 2015). When both the different approaches are well-designed in nature, this will help in using both the options effectively as both of them are effective in reducing the different kinds of issues and emissions related to the green house gases effectively and appropriately.

Additionally, this can be seen and identified that the cap and trade have competitive advantage over carbon tax (Metivier et al. 2017). This helps in providing more certainty about the different kinds of emissions reductions which will help in reduction in the prices of the taxes effectively. Moreover, this has been noticed that on the other hand, the carbon tax helps in providing certainty about the price and there is little certainty about the different kinds of emissions reductions as well (Raux, Croissant and Pons, 2015). The carbon tax have several kinds of disadvantages as well which is inclusive of that the carbon tax is simple in nature and there is no such complexity in it while implementing the same in the different organizations which emit different kinds of green house gases.

Therefore, this can be concluded that both carbon tax and cap and trade are essential in natures which are required to be adopted by the different manufacturing or other industries in different parts of the world which will help them in reducing the different kinds of green house gases emissions in an efficient and appropriate manner. Furthermore, this can be seen and analyzed that both of the regulatory policies tools have certain advantages along with disadvantages which are required to be analyzed as this will help in managing the overall efficiency of the firm positively without much difficulties.

Furthermore, this has been seen that there have been different kinds of reforms which have been created by the United Kingdom companies which helped them in managing the overall efficiency of the firms in such a manner which will be effective in nature in analysing the overall effectiveness of the firms and the reduction in the different emissions of the green house and other harmful gases elements. Lastly, the reforms in the cap and trade regulatory policy tools is inclusive of the revision of the provisions of free allowances which will be effective in managing the overall appropriateness of the firms along with cutting unnecessary kinds of red tape which will help in striking clear balance between cost efficiency and fairness.

Allan, G., Lecca, P., McGregor, P. and Swales, K., 2014. The economic and environmental impact of a carbon tax for Scotland: a computable general equilibrium analysis. Ecological Economics, 100, pp.40-50.

Beck, M., Rivers, N., Wigle, R. and Yonezawa, H., 2015. Carbon tax and revenue recycling: Impacts on households in British Columbia. Resource and Energy Economics, 41, pp.40-69.

Dong, H., Dai, H., Geng, Y., Fujita, T., Liu, Z., Xie, Y., Wu, R., Fujii, M., Masui, T. and Tang, L., 2017. Exploring impact of carbon tax on China’s CO2 reductions and provincial disparities. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 77, pp.596-603.

Fahimnia, B., Sarkis, J., Choudhary, A. and Eshragh, A., 2015. Tactical supply chain planning under a carbon tax policy scheme: A case study. International Journal of Production Economics, 164, pp.206-215.

He, P., Zhang, W., Xu, X. and Bian, Y., 2015. Production lot-sizing and carbon emissions under cap-and-trade and carbon tax regulations. Journal of Cleaner Production, 103, pp.241-248.

Li, Z., Dai, H., Sun, L., Xie, Y., Liu, Z., Wang, P. and Yabar, H., 2018. Exploring the impacts of regional unbalanced carbon tax on CO 2 emissions and industrial competitiveness in Liaoning province of China. Energy Policy, 113, pp.9-19.

Liu, X., Wang, C., Niu, D., Suk, S. and Bao, C., 2015. An analysis of company choice preference to carbon tax policy in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 103, pp.393-400.

Liu, Y. and Lu, Y., 2015. The economic impact of different carbon tax revenue recycling schemes in China: A model-based scenario analysis. Applied Energy, 141, pp.96-105.

Marron, D.B. and Toder, E.J., 2014. Tax policy issues in designing a carbon tax. American Economic Review, 104(5), pp.563-68.

Martin, R., De Preux, L.B. and Wagner, U.J., 2014. The impact of a carbon tax on manufacturing: Evidence from microdata. Journal of Public Economics, 117, pp.1-14.

Metivier, C., Postic, S., Alberola, E. and Vinnakota, M., 2017. Global panorama of carbon prices in 2017.

Murray, B. and Rivers, N., 2015. British Columbia’s revenue-neutral carbon tax: A review of the latest “grand experiment” in environmental policy. Energy Policy, 86, pp.674-683.

Parry, I., Morris, A. and Williams III, R.C. eds., 2015. Implementing a US carbon tax: Challenges and debates. Routledge.

Raux, C., Croissant, Y. and Pons, D., 2015. Would personal carbon trading reduce travel emissions more effectively than a carbon tax?. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 35, pp.72-83.

Rezai, A. and Van der Ploeg, F., 2016. Intergenerational inequality aversion, growth, and the role of damages: Occam’s rule for the global carbon tax. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, 3(2), pp.493-522.

Van Der Ploeg, F. and Withagen, C., 2014. Growth, renewables, and the optimal carbon tax. International Economic Review, 55(1), pp.283-311.

Williams, R., Gordon, H., Burtraw, D., Carbone, J. and Morgenstern, R., 2014. The initial incidence of a carbon tax across income groups.

Xu, X., Xu, X. and He, P., 2016. Joint production and pricing decisions for multiple products with cap-and-trade and carbon tax regulations. Journal of Cleaner Production, 112, pp.4093-4106.

Zhang, K., Wang, Q., Liang, Q.M. and Chen, H., 2016. A bibliometric analysis of research on carbon tax from 1989 to 2014. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 58, pp.297-310