Peter Lang. Thanks for the references.
Quite obviously, unless we are prepared to get our heads out of the sand and build some nuclear power stations, we are going to rely on our coal fired power stations for a long time. In fact, as our population increases, we may even have to build more coal fired stations as well. We certainly have sufficient coal reserves to keep us going far into the future. We might run out of gas.
Global warming, here we come.
David

Renewable power is already making South Australian electricity the dearest in the world. Watching Foreign Correspondent last might was like watching a horror movie, with the maniacal Europeans and their wall-to-wall windmills. The average German consumers and tax-payers weren't interviewed about what they thought of the $300 they are now paying for absolutely nothing to help out the rent-seekers and their windmills - on top of what 800,000 illegal immigrants are costing them.

Gold old Comrade Turnbull is going to toss some of our money on 'poor' countries (no control over what they spend it on). The joke is on Turnbull's mates, though, as the money is coming out of the normal foreign aid bucket, and they don't like that one little bit. Less for all the other bludging dysfunctional states.

Any money being used for this outrageous climate BS should be on defending the West from Islamic terrorism.

Mark Lawson

guys thanks for the comments.. have to dash..

Peter Lang - I will make an effort to read that article.. and tnks..

I wonder at the brainpower of folks who think we can go all the way out to 2C ? Which in many minds is a tipping point from which there can be no recovery; at least until we have traversed 5C, and an extinction event? This is what the historical paleontological record tells us?

The problem is money and how much some mighty powerful folk might lose, rather than what the rest of us might pay, given we are very like the warm and comfortable frogs being very slowly brought to the boil!

And only reacting to our predicament when our goose is well and truly cooked!

I'd understand if decarbing our struggling economy was going to impact negatively, rather than provide myriad new opportunities for entrepreneurs and those still capable of using the brains they were born with to wax fat!

Albeit some politicians will need to try some lateral thinking; or just thinking outside the box; which could, in either event, be a novel new experience?

A veritable win/win all round, as long as you're not a bloated billionaire coal baron, or spit lickle yes man!
Rhrosty.

Rhosty - this business about 2C and 4C are just horror stories with no foundation in fact, and that's without bothering to get into the science.. the supposedly settled science only deals with the temperature increases. What might actually happen at those increases is just guess work.. incidentally its 1C from now (2C from pre-industrial times with 1C having already occured, not 2 from now - there is endless confusion on that point. If the 1C occurs over, say, three decades, assuming it occurs at all, its doubtful that it would make much difference at all..

There is no evidence of a tipping point at 2C. The critical facts that people sgould be aware of are:

1. the planet is in a coldhouse phase. In fact we are in only the third cold house phase in more than half a billion years (the time when multi-cell animal life has thrived on Earth).

2. There have been no ice sheets at either pole for 75% of the past half billion years, demonstrating the planet is in a coldhouse phase and this is a period of unusually cold.

3. The planet has been cooling from its normal tempts for the past 50 million years

4. Life thrives when the planet is warmer and struggles when colder.

5. The climate does not change in smooth curves as projected by the GCM's. The climate changes abruptly; always has always will.

6. We are currently past the peak of the current interglacial. If not for humans' GHG emissions the next abrupt change would be to cooler - that's catastrophic. Warming is not catastrophic, as clearly demonstrated by the paleo evidence

7. Our GHG emissions are reducing the risk of the next abrupt climate change - we are delaying the next abrupt cooling and reducing its severity. This has to be balanced against the risks of potential (but temporary) increased warming (the long term cooling to the next ice age will continue, and the sequence of ice ages and interglacials will continue until the plates realign so North and South America are separated and ocean currents can flow around the world in low latitudes).

People interested in the climate debate are urged to do their own reality checks, not just confirm their biases by reading only the doctrine according to the preachers of the Greens religion.