Mikk, if you continue to fund research, researchers will continue to do their research.

I am not a climate change denier, nor am I an alarmist either. My problem is with jobs and finding a balance between environmental strategies and job protection and creation because without incomes, we will have nothing. Wanting to slash emissions by 50% is nothing short of economic vandalism and it will only ruin the countries who make, or at least attempt to make such changes.

We must find a solution to deal with carbon because closing our mines will be at our detriment.

rehctub,
Wanting NOT to slash emissions by 50% is nothing short of environmental vandalism, and our economy could absorbs such cuts quite easily.

Trying to get the government's budget into surplus when the private sector is weak is nothing short of economic vandalism, and has done more damage to our economy than any environmental policy ever has.

Aidan, I agree that trying to return to surplus is not good timing, however, governments seem incapable of doing anything constructive with our money, and all their talk bout changes to super, and big end tax hunts is scaring business away.

On top of this it would appear we now have to find funding to close down the camps in PnG, more wasted taxes we simply don't have.

Unfortunately this is all caused by the total incompetence of the Rudd government as his decision to remove our border protection measures is coming back to haunt us. We have huge debts, no money and given big business and super are in the governments sights, I see little chance of the situation improving. A whole new tax system would be our only chance or recovery in my view. Remember, we still have a car industry.

As for slashing emissions, you are obviously not responsible for creating jobs, because if you were, you would have a better understanding of what it takes.

I warned back in 08 that slashing confidence would be a killer, and that's what has happened, business confidence is all but gone in this country. The next phase will see big business retracting if not withdrawing all together.

Unless we introduce a new tax system, we are screwed.

Mostly its caused by the electorate being dumbed down by the clever whores in the 'lectronic whorehouse being paid by sugar daddies to misinform, mislead and generally take down the garden path those who cannot or will not remove their blinkers. The fact of BHP posting a loss of $6.4 Billion for 2015 - 2016 is probably cause for concern if you work for/deal with the mining industry. But was anyone in Canberra worried about the previous 20 years of profits...(again BHP) who, for instance from 2004 to 2014 showed a profit to ordinary shareholders of some $1,017 Billion ? Where did the profits go ? Certainly not into infrastructure improvements in WA, NT, Qld or indeed anywhere else Australia. Labor/Liberal whoever, all were happy for the so named mining boom to be p*ssed up the wall like a drillers pay packet back home off swing. A prudent and wise government would have capitalised on that "boom" and established a sovereign wealth fund for the future.

The Keating, Howard, Rudd\Gillard & the Abbott/Turnbull years could have certainly been the Golden Years of our history, even considering how well we weathered the GFC, it still could have been handled much better.

Albie Manton in Darwin, I feel one of the main drivers of profits being shipped off shore, is our 'robin hood' style of funding, taking from the rich to support the poor.

The other problem we have is that all our mineral royalties could have been stashed away, but we simply have too many on the hand out list, so we need these monies just to pay the bills. Now that the mining boom is all but gone, we now have nothing left to turn to, that's why governments are now looking at large company taxes and peoples super. There is literally nothing else to tap in to.

We have an aging population, mass underemployment, very few paying more in taxes than they draw in welfare, and the illegals fallout to fund. There is simply nothing left, and the sooner our leaders accept this, the sooner we can get serious about changes to our outdated tax systems.

Yes Butch, I remember sitting at a symposium in 2003 with Tim Flannery present, with his opening comment something to the tune of - as I flew into Darwin I could barely see a solar panel on any roof under my flight path (at that time the outer suburbs of Palmerston were being developed and built).

Another speaker mentioned that by 2050 we could expect to see a sea level rise of 6 metres and drew the analogy of it being equivalent to the height of the palm trees fringing Fannie Bay...oh well,there goes Cullen Bay, Bayview and half of Darwin sort of thing...bring your mask and snorkel to get in the front door.

Going further back to the mid 1990's when I was studying refrigeration trades the (then new) laws for CFC's such as R12, R22, R117 had recently been enacted. All the old salts in the trade were bemoaning the fact they couldn't just open a valve and let refrigerant gases vent to atmosphere.

Things have changed due to various conventions, protocols and such, but keep in mind Du Pont de Nemours had the patents on just about very refrigerant made. So, was it just good business to invent a "hole in the ozone layer", fund a world wide programme to investigate the reasons for it and invent a new class of HCFC's to replace the older ones, with patent rights effective until 2040 ? I'd reckon so.

What many are not aware of is, that, although the new greenie friendly gases are lower in Ozone Depleting Potential, Greenhouse Warming Potential, reduced this & that...the lubricant oils inside the system used to keep compressors going are very nasty. Stuff like PAG (Polyalkylene Glycol) & others contain substances that will turn your hair purple, rot your testes off and cause three headed babies... almost.

Then we have the problem of the materials used to manufacture photo voltaic panels http://grist.org/climate-energy/those-cheap-chinese-solar-panels-have-a-dirty-little-secret/ so at the end of the day, where does it all end ?