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Chemical Technology • February 2016
26
P
art 1 (How the tax is calculated based on CO
2
equivalent emissions for stationary and non-sta-
tionary/mobile sources) is covered in this article.
art 2 – Allowances and Offsets, will follow in a future issue
as will Part 3 – Fugitive emissions, Industrial emissions.
The Bill as published is the Carbon Tax Act, 2017, which will
come into operation on January 1, 2017. It is to provide for
the imposition of a tax on the carbon dioxide (CO
2
) equivalent
of greenhouse gas emissions, to be levied and collected for
the benefit of the National Revenue Fund, or to be known
as the Carbon Tax.
In brief, the Preamble to the Bill states the following:
• Greenhouse gas emissions have been scientifically
confirmed.
• The inevitable climate change impact needs to be man-
aged.
• It is necessary to make a contribution to the global ef-
fort to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the
atmosphere.
• The costs must be paid for by those responsible for harm-
ing the environment.
• The government is desirous to utilise measures to ad-
dress the challenges posed by climate change.
• This will require the deployment of carbon and economic
incentives, as well as the use of emissions offsets.
• The government believes that imposing a tax on green-
house gas emissions and concomitant measures, such
as providing tax incentives for rewarding the efficient
use of energy, will provide appropriate price signals to
help nudge the economy towards a more sustainable
growth path.
Abbreviations
“allowance”
means any amount allowed to be taken into
account in determining the carbon tax payable;
“carbon budget”
means a limit on total greenhouse gas
emissions from a specific company
“carbon tax”
means a tax on the CO
2
equivalent of green-
house gas emissions
“CO
2
equivalent”
means the concentration of CO
2
that
would cause the same amount of radiative forcing [1] (the
difference of sunlight absorbed by the earth and energy
radiated back to space) as a given mixture of CO
2
and other
greenhouse gases.
“combustion”
means the exothermic reaction of a fuel
with oxygen.
“Commissioner”
means the Commissioner for the South
African Revenue Service.
“emissions”
means the release of greenhouse gases or
their precursors and aerosols into the atmosphere over a
specified area and period of time.
“emission factor”
means the average emission rate of a
given greenhouse gas for a given source, relative to the
activity data of a source stream, assuming complete oxida-
tion for combustion and complete conversion for all other
chemical reactions: GHG emission factor (CO
2
e) per tonne.
In November, 2015, the South African
National Treasury published for
comment the Draft Carbon Tax Bill. To
enable engineers to better understand
the Bill, its contents have been edited
for brevity and examples included to
introduce the structure of the Bill as a
commentary. This is a three-part series.
The
Draft Carbon Tax Bill
Part 1 - How the tax is calculated
by Carl Schonborn Pr Eng