The question of insurance has figured prominately in the discussion.

The case has not been made successfully that the proposed tax will cover the risk. Kind of like all those people living near a river with flood insurance finding out that only certain types of flood's were covered and not the flood they had.

The proposed tax looks like a thinly veiled wealth redistribution rather than a genuine attempt to make a difference to the environment.

If I pay for insurance I'd like to have some confidence that the insurance covers the risks that I face, not that it's doing something else entirely. I don't have that with Gillard and Swan's new tax.

R0bert

Why can't the climatists just call a spade as spade?
If they want "Western", in other words White countries to pay then say outright, "We want White people to pay non white people in order that Whites can maintain their lifestyles, guilt free".
That's going to be the only practical effect, White people's cost of living will rise, so they'll find work arounds and cheats to maintain their lifestyles.
It's a fact, if something is expensive people will find a way of getting it cheaper, or in this day and age, for free and someone will always be there to find a way to corrupt the system and fill that demand for a "Black Market".
Emissions will not go down,they'll go up it doesn't matter how much we end up having to pay, you can put all the green schemes you want but they will just end up being corrupted to serve the Capitalists.
The compensation and aid to Third world countries will be stolen by corrupt officials and laundered back into the global banking system, just like it is now.
Like most people I don't have a problem with changing my lifestyle if it's going to be cheaper, healthier and give my children a better future.It can be done, members of my own family live totally off the grid, self sufficient in power and water,with extremely efficient dwellings.This simple life coupled with a good wage from full time work results in a very agreeable lifestyle, which is close to and in harmony with nature.
But where's the model for that transition?
No, seriously, base load green power is feasible, all the technological innovations we need to lead sustainable lives can be implemented today, what's more as the "water crisis" proved the will to change and tighten our belts is there too.
Yet all we hear about are ways to tweak the current system, about wealth redistribution, "racism", "rich" countries and "poor" countries, White guilt and prophecies of doom.

What's the real Green agenda?
Control over the existing system of inequality or progress toward a new one?

bonmot,

What's more important? Getting someone to Mars, Branson making flights beyond the ionosphere available to mere citizens, Oz making it back to a surplus budget a year early, a few extra bucks in the bank for a rainy day, OR a global technological push to bring the Third World into the First World?

What is the fight against terrorism costing? Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea... armaments, armies, security agencies..? Poverty, avian flu', swine flu', SARS, AIDS, ...?

What's it worth to ensure global food security, to contain world population within workable limits, to extend reasonable quality of life to the whole global community?

How easily we get distracted from the main game. A little while back we had concern for world forests, whales, oceanic pollution, pulp mills and dioxins, the environment, world over-population. Now CO2. All part of the same game, the main game, imbalance and inequity.

We have a GFC and go nuts about it. Third World = perpetual GFC.

Copenhagen failed, maybe because the vision was too narrow. An opportunity lost for forging a global future.

All too hard? A global vision to eliminate poverty, illiteracy, conflict, imbalance. A few bucks per head to the First World now, an age of discontent, uncertainty and enmity later.

Short answer = hip pocket, but unlike Lotto, if a global vision prevails, we all win. What can we do? Keep the noise going until someone listens.

Meanwhile the Arctic sea-ice is shrinking, melting or thinning while before and after photos of retreating glaciers can be found on Google images.
Is it carbon in the atmosphere, too many people on the planet, or just part of a misunderstood natural cycle?
Does our war-without-end have anything to do with it?
And by 'it' I mean what appears to be the unarguable proposition that global weather is becoming more extreme.
An answer might be in the winds.
Consider a pot of water coming to the boil. Next consider the air over that pot. As the water heats, the air over it becomes agitated.
Now consider the oceans. Does a tiny increase in the water's temperature equate to a tiny increase in the movement of the air over that water?
The more and bigger storms everywhere have to be coming from somewhere.
And what effect will a carbon tax in Australia have on any of the above?
No answers here, only questions.

Saltpetre: "What's it worth to ensure global food security, to contain world population within workable limits, to extend reasonable quality of life to the whole global community?"

Obviously it's worth a great deal to all of us, and if you all just want to band together and pay me a trillion dollars I will wave my magic wand and make it happen.

And once you understand why you don't believe I can do it, you will understand our attitude to the AGW alarmists.

Saltpetre, agree with all you say, but ... paradigm shifts don't happen overnight.

In the mean time, it would be prudent to adapt to a changing climate and taking steps to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.

It's going to cost (in more ways than one) everyone; some thing, some time, some where. We may as well start now by 'pricing carbon'.