I give these two articles both clearly written by convinced Climate Change devotees. They give, however, reasonably fair accounts.
There is almost zero chance of getting India and China on board unless - for heavens sake - we pay for it!!!
So this - if readers’ hearts can take the shock - is good news as far as it goes!
Christina
TELEGRAPH
14.8.09
1. Australia carbon trading scheme blocked in parliament
Australia could have a snap election after opposition and Greens senators blocked the progress of the world's most ambitions carbon trading scheme through the parliament's upper house.
By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney
The government-backed plan would force the country's 1,000 worst polluters to buy carbon dioxide permits, covering 75 per cent of national emissions, in an attempt to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 to 25 per cent by 2020.
Yesterday the plan was defeated by 42 votes to 30. The Greens Party wants tougher emissions targets while on the other side, some conservative opponents do not a scheme at all. Businesses also fear that Australia will be disadvantaged in the global marketplace if other nations fail to act on climate change.
However, the Kevin Rudd's Labour government has vowed that the bill will return to the senate in three months. If it is voted down again, it will give the government a trigger for a dissolution of parliament before its three-year term has ended. That could lead to a snap election as early as December. Opinion polls suggest that an early election fought on the issue of climate change would favour Mr Rudd's party.
Australia is the world's biggest coal exporter, and relies on coal for about 80 per cent of electricity generation, making it the largest per-capita carbon emitter in the developed world.
It is also at great risk from climate change. The country is currently suffering from a seven-year-drought that has turned the Murray-Darling River system to dust and is threatening food production.
The government is determined that the carbon emissions plan, which is due to start in July 2011, will be approved before the United Nations meeting on climate change in Copenhagen in December. World nations will try to hammer out a broad global climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol and many are anxious to have made their positions clear before the summit.
Making the government's aim clear, Penny Wong, the climate change minister, told the senate: "This bill may be going down today, but this is not the end. We will bring this bill back before the end of the year because if we don't, this nation goes to Copenhagen with no means to deliver our targets."
However, Nick Minchin, the senate Liberal leader who commands the largest voting bloc in the upper house, said the bill should be put "in the deep freeze" until after the Copenhagen meeting and a US Senate debate on an American emissions permit trading scheme.
The legislation has become deeply controversial in Australia, where some senators have not accepted that climate change is linked to man-made carbon emissions.
Mr Rudd told parliament the defeat had "put Australia's future on climate change in grave jeopardy".
The Australia Greens, who control five crucial Senate swing votes, wrote to Mr Rudd and Ms Wong after the rejection to promise future support for the bill if the government hardened its reduction targets and backed renewable energy.
Business leaders, academics and carbon market experts all called on the government and its political opponents to end the domestic political squabbling and agree on a emissions scheme. Heather Ridout, Australian Industry Group chief executive, said: "It is now time to forge an agreement on climate change policy. An agreement is needed in the interests of business certainty."
2. Comment: Australian carbon defeat is bad news for Copenhagen summit
The failure to pass new climate change legislation in Australia does not bode well for a global agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol at the end of the year in Copenhagen.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent
If Australia cannot agree, how will more than 90 countries with opposing views possibly thrash out an agreement to tackle climate change?
It was thought Australia was ready to follow Europe in committing to cut carbon. The country has more first-hand experience than most of the impact of climate change through its recent droughts and bush fires; Kevin Rudd, the prime minister, has overturned his predecessor's objections to signing up to the Kyoto Protocol and the Green Party is popular.
But Australia also is reliant on coal to run its economy, and it has some of the world's most outspoken climate change sceptics.
Ian Plimer, professor of mining geology at Adelaide University and author of a recent book Heaven and Earth, has controversially questioned whether climate change is man made. His book was refused by many publishers but has since gone on to sell tens of thousands of copies in Australia. Its author has been lobbying politicians and appearing regularly on television.
The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December will need rich countries such as Australia to introduce climate change legislation to prove they are serious about cutting carbon.
Otherwise developing countries like India and China, that are predicted to produce more carbon in the future, will refuse to cut their own emissions.
All eyes are now on the US where President Barack Obama has a similarly tough job getting through his own legislation. He wants to introduce a carbon trading scheme in the most oil-hungry country in the world.
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