A very sensible and level headed antidote to the shrill cries of the knockers and self-haters who want to blame Australia for everything. The per capita shrieks are pretty silly when we have only 20 million people.

No, Bernie Masters, Kyoto is not a copout. It is an intelligent beginning. Meanwhile, your lengthy criticism of Kyoto implies just one course of action, really - that we all should act as individuals, and virtuously walk more, use less electricity etc. Individual action is fine, and it also has an educative effect – and should lead people to demand government action.
But, ultimately, individual action is futile, without legislative action. The imposition of a carbon tax, and mandated renewable energy targets would lead the market to truly tackle the greenhouse gas problem.
It is not irrelevant that Australia’s per capita output of greenhouse gases is so high. By signing up to Kyoto, Australia would be able to deal profitably in international emissions trading.
More importantly, Australia would be telling the U.S.A that we are no longer prepared to fawn over that fossil fool, George Bush. Australia could take a leadership role. And this would be noticed by the countries with developing economies – we have a great symbolic power to influence them, despite our small population. Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

I'm not sure that China or India would do metals smelting with much lower emissions. Moreover those countries may feel they are entitled to the same per capita emissions (industries and households combined) as Australia so we should lead by example. If carbon taxes were internationally harmonised or backed up with penalty tariffs then the location of smelters may come down to other factors. These include wages, skill levels, water supply and transport as well as technological efficiency. Essentially world emissions need to be cut by half so the countries that can do the most with the least will get the work.

ChirstinaMac,

The Kyoto Protocol is a fraud and a sham. A decent honest protocol would say: you burn it, you cop the blame. However under Kyoto:

1. Major polluters such as India and China are exempt, as it only applies to industrialised countries.

2. If Australia burns a kilo of coal we get the blame. Fair enough.

But if we sell it to Japan and they burn it, we STILL get the blame.

If we tell the Japs to buy their coal from South Africa, and they burn it, NO-ONE gets the blame.

If we wanted to halve our "emmissions" all we would have to do is go on using all the oil etc. we want, and close down our coal export industry. The Japs would buy their coal from South Africa, not one molecule less of CO2 would be generated, but the figures would look great.

The con with Kyoto is that it is a sweetheart deal between the EU and the third world. The EU imports vast amounts of coal and oil, but is not blamed for burning it because it is imported. The exporters are also not blamed because they are in the Annex A list. The oil exporting countries of the middle east, who enjoy huge incomes from it, are also not included in Annex A.

The important facts on population and pollution are:

Only 11% of the world's population live below the equator.

Only 4% of the world's pollution is generated below the equator.

We do not matter. This problem is a northern hemisphere one.

Bernie, it may pay the Liberals to stop wasting time asking questions about India and China, and get on with what we should be doing whether it will be nuclear, solar-powered or wind-powered.

Fossil fuels are going to run out anyhow, so let's get on with it, and use some of the billions of dollars in kitty, that Costello has got in his Future Fund.

There is so much to be done in this country. For a start there was talk by German migrant neighbours when I was a lad in the bush, that with the lack of big rivers in the south, Australia should turn the northern rivers southward to compensate. One way it could be done in the East, they said, was to cut a channel through the headlands of the Darling letting adjacent big northern rivers flow backwards down to the Murray.

Believe it or not there was also rumours during WW2, that the Japs had ideas like the above if or when they took over Australia.

Also recently there has been talk in the bush about diverting the small rivers that flow into Lake Eyre, leaving the big inland lake with just enough moisture, thus making use of the greatest inland natural solar collector in the world.

Anyone that disbelieves, just try walking across a moistly dry inland saltlake on a hot summers day in bare feet.

Finally, going by the way our Liberal government still plays scorn to our Greenie avante guarde, even after stealing their ideas, one wonders about George W Bush even now acting humble pie to the US Democrats. Maybe our little Johnny could take a lesson.

It is surprising, given the obvious left bias of so many contributors to these threads, that no-one has pointed out that the Kyoto Protocol is first and foremost a "Wall St and Bankers" treaty.

Under Kyoto the shareholders of all the major emitters are free to maintain all their current emissions by simply shifting their factories to countries that are outside the protocol.

The only people making any sort of sacrifice for global climate will be the existing employees in countries like Australia who will lose their job.

And Beazley, the champion of the working man, will sign up for those job losses.