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.

I for one, actually think that nobody wants to really do anything about climate change.

They want the issue fixed, yes, but that's not the same thing.

The kyoto protocol seems like a solution. Everyday voters think it won't affect them - we should just sign it and the problem will go away.

Everybody wants a solution, nobody wants to have to curb their lifestyle. Welcome to the human race.

Kyoto won't do much, but it is a start. It will hurt economically. Quite a lot. But better we sustain an injury while we are healthy, than when we are ill.

If we aren't willing to take serious measures, we can't seriously expect other nations to as well.

China and India will need to be convinced and we probably can't do that if Australia and the US don't sign up.

I tend to agree with Perseus. Kyoto was stacked heavily in Europe's favour and failed to address carbon sinks properly, which Australia and North/South America have plenty of. The capacity of the oceans to absorb and reprocess carbon was one I hadn't really though much of and needs more looking into.

Ponder makes a very good point, but underestimates the timeline of the cycle and the number of different cycles. The Sun has magnetic/thermal cycle of 22 years. The Earch a sidereal cycle of 26,000 years (that's why the sun is no longer in virgo at whatever time of the year - but it was 2000 years ago).

Places like ancient Carthage moved from fertile to wasteland in recorded history before the industrial revolution. So too has the size of the Sahara desert increased over the last few millenia. 6000 years ago England was mostly wooded, and 12,000 years ago Europe was buried by ice. 66 Million years ago the world was tropical with hardly any polar or galacial ice.

To add to Ponder's point climate change is needed for evolution/natural selection of life. The world is in constant flux and always has been. The question is how much is human activity impacting on this ever present change.

I must admit that I am baffled by the new climate change religion. The first thing I don't understand is the philosophy of Kyoto. If you burn a kilo of coal, you get the blame. Fair enough. But why do you STILL get the blame if someone else in another country burns your kilo of coal? Why doesn't he get the blame? And if we tell him we won't supply him any more, and he gets his coal from South Africa and burns it, NO-ONE gets the blame. If someone can explain the reasoning behind this, I would be grateful.

Again, I can't understand people who denigrate the desire of modern countries to run expanding economies. As I see it, the last time we ran a world where the economies weren't expanding, it was called the Great Depression, and most people weren't happy. Mass unemployment, starvation, hopelessness, don't seem to be good goals to aim for.

Again, why is it that NO-ONE mentions the real problem, which is world population growth. Nature has a cure for this, and it is called the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Not a lot of fun, I would think.

It seems to me that many extreme environmentalists are watermelons; green on the outside, red on the inside.

A few comforting statistics to end with.

The percentage of the world's population that lives in the southern hemisphere: 11%.

The percentage of the world's pollution generated in the southern hemisphere: 4%.

“I for one, actually think that nobody wants to really do anything about climate change.” I tend to agree – most will expect governments to come up with the ‘feel good’ policies such as Kyoto – providing energy costs (fuel and electricity) are kept reasonable. We’ll happily continue to run our air conditioners, drive our many vehicles and consume the products made in China (produced from our coal and raw materials). As with our so called ‘water restrictions’, we’ll just increase our usage because, “be damned! Our back yard ‘just don’t’ use much in the scheme of things”

I’ll congratulate the politician who can sustain popularity at the ‘Gallup’ and simultaneously tell the public we cannot afford the capital to continue building our McMansions with a 2nd plasma screen in the bedroom, along with every other appliance or ‘gizmo’ we ‘need’.

Plerdsus,

I dont think you are right about if someone else burns our coal we still cop the blame. It is certainly the case with wood chips exported to Japan in that the stupid rule is that he who chops the tree down cops the blame, but for coal dug up here, exported to Japan which they burn,then they certainly cop the blame for that.

But, we also cop the bame for opening up the mine here in the first place, which supposedly releases Co2. That may be a fiddle,I dont know.

In any event Kyoto itself is still a nonsense.

Global warming is happening and it is caused by the release of carbon in many forms into the atmosphere. The CO2 concentrations as measured over the past few years at Cape Grim are increasing at an increasing rate. There is little doubt that we need to reduce our emissions and to start to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

This can be done and it can be done in such a way as to have a positive effect on the world (or any particular country) economy.

The solution is to invest in the infrastructure to produce energy which does not release carbon be it nuclear, solar, bio-diesels, etc. As well as producing energy we need to invest in the infrastructure to produce materials which extract carbon from the atomosphere for useful purposes (eg. non biodegradable plastics).

The trick is to finance the infrastructure so that it will have a positive economic effect. One way to do this outlined at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5180

The first country to move to such a regime will have "first mover" advantages and be able to export its techniques and methods to other countries. Australia has a great opportunity to be that country.

This article fails to mention that, while coal production has tripled in the past 20 years, the coal mining industry has shed 18,000 jobs. This sounds like workers have already been sacrificed on the altar of the coal industry.

The closure of the Vestas blade plant in Wynyard Tasmania has led to a loss of 200 jobs in that community. There are plenty of jobs in renewable technologies, particularly in regional areas. We just need an increase in the MRET to drive investment in the industry.

Yes, we are a small country but we are still in the top 10 of nations producing large amounts of CO2 (and there are 50 nations with populations greater than ours).

Regarding our advantage - Australia used to lead the world in the research and development of renewable technologies. We could again.

So - enough of the right-wing hype, mostly funded by the big mining companies and their donations to political parties. Think of a sustainable future and work towards it - and the economy will follow.

The authors are quite right: Australia's direct contributions to global GHG levls are unimportant. But where we can make a difference, a huge difference, is by providing our clean (or at least cleaner) technologies and fossil fuels to developing countries. Remember: India and China have about 2.4 billion people between them, all of whom want a standard of living similar to ours. We won't be able to blackmail them into accepting a lower living standard or point a gun at their heads in an attempt to achive the same thing, so the only course of action open to us is to assist them and work with them to achieve their goals using the lowest GHG emitting technologies and fossil fuels that the developed world has to offer.

People may well be skeptical of 'new coal' but we have to find a way to make coal and all other fossil fuels cleaner in terms of GHG emissions than at present (assuming we don't go down the nuclear path). So let's stop pretending that Kyoto will make a difference - it won't - and let's start living in the real world which contains 6 billion people, most of whom want to increase their standard of living whether we like it or not.

Excuses abound these days, with "too small to make a difference" high on the best seller list.

I look forward to smokers, thieves and litterers applying this amorality to their offences - why should i quit when theres all those other smokers around forcing me to be a passive smoker? Why should i quit crime when there are so many other criminals out there? Why put my rubbish in the bin when so many don't? This from the Party that pretends to a high moral ground? The hypocrisy gets more sickening each day.

Perseus says: "That Australia has a small population and a vast area of territorial waters to absorb our emissions. Our emissions are well within our ecosystems capacity to deal with".

Does this gentleman understand carbon based chemicals at all? Is he aware that as a result of burning fossil fuels, our oceans and rivers are force-fed polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, arsenic, benzene, hexavalent chromium, cyanide, formaldehyde, mercury, VOCs,PMs, NOxs, dioxins and furans, CO, toluene, fluoride and dozens more?

Is he aware that the transboundary persistent organic pollutants that we emit from poorly combusted industrial stacks can end up in Timbuktu, India, UK, China or Bullamakanka for that matter?

Does he know that our marine life is mutating, struggling to survive or dying as a result of Australia's pollution of its oceans and rivers? Is he courageously dining on the fish from the Sydney Harbour, Botany Bay or perhaps the Parramatta River? Is he aware of the toxic plume in Botany Bay caused by past industries and the current 10,000 tonnes of leaky drums of hexachlorobenzene? "No worries" Perseus, no doubt is saying, "developing countries are probably dumping dioxins in their waterways,why shouldn't we?!"

If Perseus is reluctant to reduce atmospheric CO2 because of his dislike of the Europeans, then perhaps he should become more acquainted with the documented evidence on how the burning of fossil fuels impacts on the health of humans, agriculture, fauna and marine life. He, like our greedy governments and colluding, pollutant industries are living in La La land and refuse to acknowledge that per capita, we are the second largest polluter on the planet!

Good points Perseus. And how very predictable, Dickie. An obvious resident of Sydney, in response to a discussion about our territorial oceans, dishes up a diatribe about the Parramatta River, Sydney Harbour and Botany Bay.

"We" have not polluted "our" oceans, Sydney people have fouled their own nest, big time. My creek is much cleaner and healthier than it was 50 years ago. And the simple facts of the matter are that most of Australia's emissions occur within 100km of five GPOs. My forest absorbs a lot more CO2 than my 28 tonne share of the national quota.

Our continental ecosystem processes the emissions of 25 million people (including Kiwis) while the European continental ecosystem is burdened by the emissions of 750 million people.

The international courts of justice have recognised national jurisdiction over up to 200 mile (333km) Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ's) of ocean. And this ocean is fully capable of absorbing CO2.

And clearly, if the absorption capacity of our ocean is ever compromised by excess CO2 emissions it will be because someone else's have been in excess of their continental ecosystem's capacity to deal with.

I cannot sell my products, or even my labour, in Europe so why should I be expected to carry the burden of the emissions from their closed market place? Surely, they are, in effect, expecting us to subsidise their emission problem. So where does that end? Subsidising a junkies smack so he won't steal my TV?

Seditious asserts that I am no doubt, a Sydney resident. He couldn't be more inaccurate and I, as an Aussie, could not live further from Sydney unless I jumped into the Indian ocean.

The increase in ocean CO2 has already revealed that the PH of oceans has drastically changed where corals have now been chemically and ecologically altered with CO2 responsible for dissolving calcium carbonate, the building blocks of reefs and shells.

Seditious fails to appreciate that our oceans are sopping up our CO2 emissions, thereby slowing down the accumulation of atmospheric gases.

In addition, he is seemingly unconcerned about our oceans' capability limits to also absorb millions of tonnes of sewage and other industrial wastes.

Is he aware also that ANSTO tips the Lucas Heights radioactive waste waters into the Potter Point on the Kurnell peninsula. They assure us that the radioactive compound of the waste is only 20 - 50% of the prescribed limits. Heh hum! The La Hague reactor in Normandy France dumps an estimated 230 million litres of radioactive waste into the Atlantic each year.

Contamination has shown up in seafood and seaweed near the plant, but strong currents also disperse the contamination northward through the English Channel and the North Sea with traces found as far north as Norway and the Arctic.

The authors here recommend "tax breaks, concessions and subsidies to reduce CO2." Tell that to Mr Howard, gentlemen where the federal government actually grants concessions to anyone with a stack who is willing to burn waste oil.

This heinous waste fuel has more unknown, untested substances than a hazardous waste compound and industry is permitted to enthusiastically burn this muck without restriction.

I remind Seditious, the oceans no longer belong to us exclusively. He needs to acquaint himself better with the sciences of pollution and perhaps population control.

He along with our governments, appear totally unaware that they, like all other humans on this planet are now citizens of "Ecumenopolis". Resignations or cancelled subscriptions are not an option!