While I have points of disagreement with the author, nevertheless, he did come up with a very important concept: the need for cooperation. Despite the head-in-the-sand attitude of denialists, climate change IS real and needs to addressed. We have to get on a war footing and pull out all stops to mitigate it. Bickering on the floor of Parliament is not helping - delay is only making the problem worse. Agreeing on a reasonably high carbon price (over $50/tonne) would be a good start. Removing subsidies of fossil fuel industries would be another. Directing that money to establishing renewable energy industries the next. We haven't got time to wait.

The facts are:

Climate change is real,

The carbon tax at about $26/ton will make no difference without reciprocal agreements with our largest trading partners, ie China and Japan.

The Carbon tax will increase the cost of living, increase interest rates, and close businesses.

Both popnperish and Shadow Minister assert that "Climate Change is real."

No disagreement on that. Of course it is real.

The real question though is what is the cause? It could be natural cycles. It could be land-use factors affecting local and regional climate. It could be anthropogenic CO2. Or it could be some other factors. The fact is that you/we do not know!!

It is certain that it has NOT been proven that CO2 is any kind of problem. Yet here we are going through agony about a carbon tax that might be completely unnecessary.

Here we go again, on the Carbon Tax merry-go-round. The Oz public is about to reap the super-cala-fragelistic-expi-alidocious harvest of a government determined to pursue a failed undeclared socialist ideology of such idiocy that it defies understanding by even the major protagonists themselves. Mind-boggling.

Not content to fiddle while Rome burns, this government runs rampant around the bonfire setting new conflagrations to intensify illumination of its own naked ambition for historical recognition of an ineptitude of such enormity as to defy all comparison. God, give us strength.

Here we ride on a tidal wave of mineral resource productivity of biblical proportion (and finite span), but the surfboard is in the hands of a committee of blind left-footed neo-intellectualati whose compass only points inwards to gargantuan implosion. Great!

Green is the colour of our new born friends, and red is blood of the balance sheet.

Tax big business, tax the miners, tax fossil-gobblers, modify welfare - do it, legislate, and use the gains exclusively for renewables and re-greening of the planet, or get out and let someone else do it - but don't go burdening the public at large with ill-founded schemes based solely on pride and misplaced ambition. Eventually the Oz public will have had enough of deception and mismanagement and will be begging for change.

The latest news - there has been no decision. Surprised, everyone?

Everald. You say: "The vast majority of emails were from readers who want a solution to be found". Unfortunately few have called for carbon tax revenue to be used for climate friendly infrastructure in Australia."

I Sent a submission to the Tax Tax inquiry a few infrastructure proposals:-

1. To Make better use of the existing Australian car fleet by the provision more CNG infrastructure to encourage its use as transitional fuel for road vehicles and encourage the use of electric cars: gas /electric, petrol/electric and diesel/electric hybrid cars.

2. Tax incentives for employers to provide electric car, electric scooter and electric bicycle recharging facilities and provide roof top; wind energy or solar energy collectors for heating,cooling lighting powering computers and other tools.

3. Carbon taxes raised to be used to build bikeway networks in all Australian cities, enhance rail infrastructure, extend rail services and express bus services into all outer urban areas: provide secure bicycle parking at all modal interchanges and railway stations: also rural stations used by commuters into the capital cities.

4. Encourage Encourage state planning agencies to constrain developers to reduce urban sprawl and provide public transport services in new residential and industrial areas and make urban areas more permeable with direct routes for walkers and cyclists.

5. Provide short cuts for pedestrians and cyclists, in existing built up areas: more light bridges, routes through both public and private properties, bridges over barriers, safe mid block main road crossings.

6. Policy support for the states to change the constitution of road planning agencies to make it their responsibility to reduce the;demand for road space, unsustainable travel, road congestion and thecreation of a continuous arterial bike network within the overall
hierarchy of urban roads.

7. Provide bike lanes on main roads and reduce their speed limits to 50 kph .
When there is not room for a bikelane or bike path in the road reservea safe alternative route would be provided on residential streets witha 30 km per hour speed limit as in the Netherlands.

Well, if by 'climate change is real' you mean that we have a good reason to believe that global temperatures change over time, then there is no question of that. But if you mean that 'global temperature is rising steadily with increasing levels of CO2', then you need to explain why it isn't; in particular why there has been no significant increase in global temperatures over the last ten years, despite a steady rise in carbon dioxide concentrations.

The one thing that will kill the global warming movement has nothing to do with all the science being levelled against it, with Climategate or with the inadequacies showing up in all the models: it is the simple fact that warming isn't happening. Not only does the AGW Emperor have no clothes, he is rapidly losing his skin, flesh and bones as well.