If you include coal exports I think you will find that Australia is guilty of 6% of global emissions despite 0.3% of world population. Therein lies a key; start denying coal to other countries. If Rudd was fair dinkum he could start a no frills ETS next year. Make the top 1000 emitters pay a flat rate of say $20 a tonne of CO2 and an equivalent export levy of $50 a tonne on coal. The big question of course is whether a global economic slowdown will cause carbon cuts anyway. That throws back to the auction concept rather than fixed pricing; if demand for carbon is weak the cap may not be binding and the carbon price will be low. Provided there aren't too many giveaways the carbon price will still be positive even in a recession.

The other reason to go ahead with the ETS slowdown or not is that the revenue will kickstart the green economy. There are potentially thousands of jobs installing insulation and solar water heaters. Instead of home owners putting up solar electricity panels some of the ETS revenue could fund power companies to 'rent' roof space on private homes. Without an ETS that money would be hard to find. The figure of $8bn has been suggested for the ETS in the first year and a coal export levy would raise even more.

Australia should respond to climate change by adapting to it. There is nothing else we can do - certainly nothing we can do to influence developing countries.

We are not supreme beings who can influence nature; ETS is a expensive joke.

Adapt, and get on with life!

Perhaps, before demanding that the Government does anything - and it's not likely to do much in the face of a global recession - we should take note of the conclusion reached by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation has now entered a cooling phase, at almost the exact time geologists have expected. The North Atlantic Oscillation has similarly entered a cooling phase. If the history of these oscillations is anything to go by, - and they were closely corrrelated with climate variation during the 20th century - we are at least as likely to have entered a 25 year period of global cooling as to be facing further warming.

This is not an argument against reducing air pollution, but we should at least not allow ourselves to be rushed into an ETS or something equally economically disastrous.

By 2020 Australia's CO2 production should be at least 20% down if not more due to our own dwindling oil production and the very high price of oil on the export market. The Greater Depression we are now entering may have a few minor upturns but when we try to recover we will bump into a ceiling set by a world plateau and then decline in oil production. Read more about it here:

http://postcarbon.org/say_goodbye_peak_oil

How's your garden Bernie? Try potatoes - they are easy to grow and productive.

Dear Senior Vic,
you forgot to post some other relevant copmments by NASA on the same issue: a la the following:

Says NASA: "Natural, large-scale climate patterns like the PDO and El Niño-La Niña are superimposed on global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and landscape changes like deforestation. According to Josh Willis, JPL oceanographer and climate scientist, ‘These natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of accentuating it.'"

Indeed, despite the natural cooling effect of the PDO, it is unable to explain the warming of the planet over the last century. We know now that the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are at an historical maximum ( according to ice-core data records and latest measurements)and that the last decade has produced the hottest years in a century (at least four major temperature measurements agree). So to say cooling is apparent is disingenuous at best.

Another very important point to remember about total energy savings is that keeping "older" cars on the road means that new replacement cars do not have to be made, transported to Australia, etc. Not great news for the new car salesmen I know but good news for the environment. I drive older cars as I prefer their character as well as knowing that I am not responsible for new ones being produced in their stead. It is no coincidence that Cuba is the greenest country on the planet - and they drive '56 Chevies.