I agree with much of the article.. the bit about not forcing emission cuts until the rest of the world shows real progress is a welcome acknowledgement of reality, and is basically now the agreed position. Almost all the initiatives activists love to point to - ETSs in China and the US, green power in China - are little more than ineffective window dressing. There is no point in Aus moving ahead of the pack.

One point on which I thoroughly disagree, however, is the acceptance of the IPCC as the sole authoritative source. Where has the author been? The IPCC has been caught several times using activist material for its reports. Or has it been several? Does someone have a count? I seem to recollect that the chairman has even declared that the panel will continue to use grey material as policy.

The IPCC constructs the agreed case for the global warming industry. From that point of view it is authoritative, but not in any other sense.

Likewise, most of the article makes sense, but why eschew questioning of the IPCC? And why suggest ignoring people who say that "the climate has always been changing"?

The climate has indeed always been changing, and always will be changing. How else did Tasmania get cut off from the mainland a scant 10,000 to 20,000 years ago as sea levels rose over 100 metres?

The only questions should be:

1. How much (if at all) has human activity altered THE RATE OF climate change?
2. What impact will this have on human civilisation in coming centuries?
3. What (if anything) can human civilisation do to ameliorate, minimize or reverse and human induced climate change?

Yes there is some sense here, but unfortunately Tom misses one thing.

Most grown-ups withy a good education can tell when they are being had. This goes double for those who should have enough math to understand at least some of the science.

Could it be that Tom knows global warming is a con job, but is playing it smart? Is he trying to defuse the greenies by singing the old "I will if you [they] will so will I" song, promising to do something sometime? Or is this just another application for taxpayer funding of some research grants?

I am probably being too generous. Any mention of taking anything from the IPCC seriously does rather render the whole piece a fairy tale. They are yet to produce a report which is not a purely political animal, designed to cement the UN as our world government.

* "any" instead of "and" in the last line of my previous comment.

Tom Biegler,

The first thing I’d suggest is making comments that appear to be barracking for Labor-Green ideology and oppose an economically rational approach turn-off for more than half the electorate before you even start. Your second and third paragraphs should have been addressed to the Labor-Green government. It’s a pity their supporters weren't saying this to them when they were in government.

You ask “what would a climate policy for grown ups look like.”

Now, to answer your question, the first thing that should be done is to state the real-world constraints. For example it would state:

1. Carbon pricing cannot succeed unless it is part of a global carbon pricing system;

2. Global carbon pricing is unlikely to succeed for the reasons explained here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/08/why-the-ets-will-not-succeed-peter-lang/

3. In the absence of global carbon pricing, single country or regional schemes, like the Australian and European ETSs, are unlikely to make any difference to the climate so will not deliver any benefits.

4. Treasury estimated the net cost of the ETS at $1,345 billion cumulative to 2050. That’s about $50,000 per person in today’s dollars!

5. The assumptions used in the Treasury analysis are highly optimistic, so the costs will inevitably be higher and the benefits less than assumed (probably none).

Together with the other Labor-Green carbon restrain legislation, the total annual cost is $19 billion this year and estimated to be $22 billion in 2019. That is a huge cost for little or no benefit.

So, the first thing to recognise is that the ETS and direct action policies imposed by the Labor-Greens government will cost a fortune and deliver next to no benefits.

Once we recognise this, the first thing we should do is to dismantle all of them as fast as we can to stop the waste.

Then we can take a ‘grown up’ (i.e. economically rational) approach to policy analysis – i.e. to develop policy that has a high probability of delivering benefits that exceed the costs. I’ll make suggestions in another comment.

Further to my last comment:

I doubt international agreements and stringent international ‘abatement policies’ will be successful, ever, and I think it is the wrong approach.

It seems to me there is an alternative approach. It is well proven over millennia and requires no top down, international policy or international legally binding agreements.

The alternative I am suggesting is to allow and facilitate freer markets to do what they do: foster competition to bring costs down and provide services that are fit for purpose.

To free up energy markets all we have to do is to remove the unnecessary impediments that we’ve imposed that are blocking them from working effectively. We can achieve this by facilitating freer trade and freer energy markets.

Especially, we need to remove the impediments we’ve imposed over the past 50 years that are blocking nuclear energy from becoming cheaper than fossil fuel energy.

Once we remove the impediments, the cost of nuclear will come down and nuclear energy will replace fossil fuels, over time. No international legally binding agreements will be needed.

International legally binding agreements are exactly the wrong policy. They will not succeed. Nor will policies that increase the cost of energy such as carbon pricing, and direct action like renewable energy targets and the many other direct action policies that have already been implemented.