Yes. We need to remember that Australia’s emissions are so small as to not be worth worrying about. And, for those who come up with claptrap about “every little bit helps”, “we should set an example” – don’t be daft!

It is the countries with large populations who are the problems, but through PC attitudes or some other weird ideas that go through “leaders” heads, they rarely get a mention in Australia.

As for the example. How arrogant! Since when was little old Australia responsible for leading the world? Perhaps we should seek the advice of Fiji's Barney Banana.

John Howard has had a protectionist attitude towards our industry and emissions in the past, but now, he too, has been captured by the rusted-on left and environmental extremists. Even his minions in the party are calling for a “policy”, peeing in their pants because they might lose votes.

It’s ironic that lefties are always damning the Government and acting like victims when lobby groups who can lobby more than once every 4 years like the rest of us, are getting what they want for them from their deadly enemies, the Coalition.

Why bother to vote when we have no effect, no matter what we believe?

Climate change has become a blame game.

Australia points the finger at China. China says (correctly) that its per-capita emissions are much less than Australia's. Third world countries point the finger at the rich world. And so it goes.

There is some logic behind the argument that we only produce 1 percent of global emissions therefore it is pointless to act. But every other nation can also find reasons for not taking action, each with theri own legitimacy.

This is a classic 'Tragedy of the Commons' situation. Everybody wants to shirk from their collective responsibility, and finds the logic to do so.

But the author's comment ..... "What Australia does has little impact one way or the other."...... is patently untrue.

Australia may emit only 1 percent of world emissions, but we export more than twice that amount in coal and gas exports.

But perhaps Austrralia's worst contribution, our national shame, has been to effectively retard the global response to climate change by siding the the US in opposition to the Kyoto agreement, every step of the way attempting to baulk an effective global reponse.

In that respect we are punching way above our 1 percent weight. That is where we have let the world community down so badly.

Another OLO article listed under envionment instead of religion.
Written by three priests at the altar of worship for unlimited growth in a finite world.
Urging us to run harder towards the certainty of eventual catastrophe; rather than ease up and take the first modest steps towards the possibility of eventual stability with reasonable lifestyles.
They put their faith in engineering to fix whatever problems are presented to that profession. An impossible ask of it, when the biggest problem is the mathematical certainty of its increase to infinity via unceasing exponential growth.

A pretty sad attempt at analysis. Australia may only emit one percent of the world's carbon but we are one of the world's biggest exporters of coal.Can this be swept under the carpet of their calculations so easily? Even if we want to be entirely parochial and selfish - as the authors apparently do - every tonne we export comes back to us sooner or later as drought and fires and desiccation. And their "New City" may soon be submerged.(I wish).

Kyoto is just the start of what should be a collective global process, it is just as much a symbol as a solution, and it is shameful that we are only one of two countries in the world standing aloof from this historic first attempt at global action. The attitudes displayed in this article, like the failure to sign Kyoto makes me ashamed to be Australian. Gross generalisations about "environmentalists" do not make for a nuanced and helpful debate either.

Colinsett makes a sound case for relisting the classification of many of the comments.
Few seem to understand that what we are going through is the natural, unalterable, million year cycle which our earth has followed forever. We CAN'T alter it, but we CAN take steps to alleviate some of its effects on our environment.
With our vast scientific knowledge and skill, we are in a far better position than mankind has ever been to analyse the effects of climate change, identify the causes, then take whatever actions possible to reduce potential adverse results on our societies.
But please, let's not kid ourselves that we can do a King Canute and command nature to change its patterns.

"Kyotos Interruptus", like its namesake, not only fails to satisfy the need but has also proven to be downright dangerous, especially for the gullible. It was designed by the worlds most notorious market corrupters, the Europeans, to enable them to export or universalise their own locally produced problem with emissions that their own meagre supply of oceans is unable to cope with.

They refused to recognise the role of territorial oceans in dealing with local emissions because countries like Switzerland and Austria have none and numerous others like Belguim, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Denmark etc have very little ocean to process their emissions.

Australia, in contrast, has a small population and a vast area of territorial waters to absorb our emissions. Our emissions are well within our ecosystem's capacity to deal with. So too are the emissions of China and India. As a Pacific nation, China has a righfull claim to benefit from the carbon absorption capacity of half the worlds ocean area. So too for India.

And the Europeans, after 500 years of wealth concentration, and 50 years of the most ruthless market and wealth protection measures needed a way to export their emission problem while maintaining the wealth concentration structure that has produced those emissions.

So they came up with Kyoto. This enables them to continue emitting greenhouse gas at the same or higher levels while purchasing comparatively cheap "Carbon Credits" with the grossly over valued currency that their corrupt trade policies has delivered.

After decades of the most selfish denial of free markets in goods and services, the Eurospivs under Kyoto want to share the resulting pollution problems with the whole world. And Rudd's Labor Party thinks its OK. Liberte, egalite et fraternite indeed.