The emphasis given in this article to green influence on the Gillard government and its policies seem to be overstated. The fact is that virtually every climate scientist in Australia has been warning government of the dangers of continued vacillating and procrastination.

Those dangers are multifaceted. Politically they include the risk of loosing cross bench support and an electoral backlash which would turf government out of office. The business sector demands a price on carbon, not in 2012 but now and has warned that it will not invest in cleaner coal technology or renewable sources until this happens.

Even our economists appear to be slowly coming to the realisation that the effects of global warming pose an increasingly disruptive and destructive threat which can only be averted through action. Politicians of course are still wondering how best to secure their future – the Thatcher approach, demanding reform, action and leadership, or the Abbott approach of spin, ineffective proposals and taxpayer funding.

Nor should we overlook the scientific advice, their warnings of the consequences of not averting dangerous global warming and just how close we are to failing. The message from the scientific community has been consistent and increasingly urgent.

Faced with these realities, no responsible government could risk denying the imperative for action. The Greens have no doubt done their share of prodding and cajoling. It has been useful but not decisive in pushing government to the realisation that maintaining the status quo is no longer an option.

I absolutely agree with you Agnostic!

I have no idea of the credentials or otherwise of the author but it appears to be consistent with the opponents to AGW...obfuscate the facts with claims that Australia would be isolated if we did anything to try to mitigate some of the impending disaster.

What is "great" about these articles is the contention that China is doing nothing...far from it! The Chinese, whilst obviously dependent upon energy for their growth, are making massive investments in solar technology and nuclear generators.

Wait for the screams in another 5-10 years when suddenly China stops buying all of the coal that we can dig up as they will have sustainable alternatives.

The only factor limiting China's weaning off fossil fuel is that they are less innovative and need to "copy" technologies that are still in their infancy.

This article is nothing new from someone from the Institute of Public Affairs - criticise all attempts to reach international agreement on reducing emissions for being unlikely to reduce emissions. It sounds like the author accepts that emissions need to be reduced but the IPA endorses and promotes denial, doubt and delay, not acceptance of the scientific basis for concern, acknowledgement of the lack of scientific doubt and the urgency inherent in what science knows about climate.

A casual read of this article might cause people to think that the author wants to see effective action but the truth is prevention of any regulatory framework, locally or internationally, to reduce emissions is IPA policy. Because the problem doesn't appear to be solvable within the framework of unregulated market ideology, the IPA finds it more convenient to argue the problem doesn't deserve the attention and serious effort. Rather than rebuild their position around science based reality, all efforts by others to do so are targets for IPA criticism.

That efforts to date have largely been compromised and inadequate is not the result of those committed to serious action based on best available science, but as a result of the influence of those opposing serious action. It's the success of organisations like the IPA and industry groups with strong vested interest and influence that have led to ongoing failure to develop effective emissions policy. Blaming the environmental movement must seem like icing on the cake of success.

Hi Agnostic from Mittagong

Agnostic? OK, but you sound like an climate alarmist.

Without a genuine theory of climate, there can be be no laws of climate change. It's irreducibly complex. Without such laws, there can be no genuine predictions, however much the climate science orthodoxy wants to convince the public otherwise.

Meanwhile, in freezing UK and northern Europe, snow-bound folk have had enough of moralising climate/weather astrologers, especially those more determined than ever to suppress the uncertainties in their "predictions".

COP-16 should be a moratorium on the integrity of the climate science orthodoxy, not another opportunity to prolong the alarmist delusion we can control the Earth's elusive thermostat.

Note climatologist Judith Curry recent post (31 October, 2010): "The question needs to be asked as to whether the early articulation of a preferred policy option by the UNFCCC has stimulated a positive feedback loop between politics, science and science funding that has accelerated the science (and its assessment by the IPCC) towards the policy option (CO2 stabilization) that was codified by the UNFCCC...."

"The net result is an OVERCONFIDENT ASSESSMENT of the importance of greenhouse gases in future climate change, which has brought us to our current position between a rock and a hard place, where we lack the information that we need to understand climate change more broadly..." (www.judithcurry.com)

It is now clear the IPCC has been corrupted by an incestuous process, one designed to ensure the UN got its pre-determined outcome: a bogus >90% certainty declaration about "dangerous" human-induced climate change just around the corner.

Monetising (and demonising) a beneficial trace gas (CO2) is a brazen attempt to transfering big $$$ ("climate debt") from the developed to the developing world via UN ticket-clippers, but it's not on. [See Wikileaks]

May COP-16 delegates enjoy the guitars and tequilla, Agnostic, for the GAME IS UP south of the border, down Mexico way.

Alice (in Warmerland)

Dear people.. please.. catch up!

Cancun is about a 'global socialist tax' which would give buckets of money to be "invested" in 3rd world countries.

By WHOM...and for WHAT? Welllllll.... yesssssss... that's the question eh?

But there is a very strong capitalist element to it all.

Maurice Strong...International man of mystery and U.N. 'string puller' extrordinaire who cobbled together Rio Earth summit and Copenhagen...

A multi millionaire and DIRECTOR of the (soon to be defunct-hopefully) CHICAGO CLIMATE EXCHANGE.

With the price of Carbon knocking on 'zero' he won't be getting rich any time soon from that.. OH WAIT..."neither will I" :( damn...damn damn.. I must ring my broker and give him a SELL instruction for my own shares in CCX.

*WARNING* Follow...the $ $ $ and it all leads to 'me' and Maurice and a few other well to do capitalist Wolves in Socialist/Green sheep skins.

Wait!.......IXCHEL will help us :)

and...."who" is IXCHEL ? why the Mayan Jaguar godess of course.

I guess the UN must be getting desparate..as it's opening speaker invoked help from IXCHEL at the opening of CANCUN.