The reason that emissions trading will have a bumpy ride is illustrated by the example you give of a new gas fired plant earning a 'carbon credit'. How's that? Sure it will produce half the CO2 of a coal fired plant but the objective is absolute reductions in emissions, not less than otherwise would be. We don't want lowered positive growth but negative growth. The alternatives are to make do with existing generation and/or install very low indirect emitters such as wind, solar and other technologies.

This is the big end of town playing silly games while the little guys struggle. Not only with bigger household power bills but stalling on climate change so that small farmers go broke even sooner. Get rid of the phoney loopholes like 'carbon credits' and emissions trading might become more politically acceptable.

Carbon trading schemes are supposed to subsidize the expensive low emission industries by the cheap polluters. Cheap coal electricity should be subsidizing wind and solar but that doesn't always happen.
Some industries like aviation have no clean alternative. Paying offsets for tree planting is just a cop out. We can't fill all our productive land with trees. Where do we grow the crops?
Some schemes are just nonsense. Paying people to distribute high efficiency light globes is just a con. The same globes are readily available in all the supermarkets and sold commercially at $3 to $4. Should we be paying Woolworths for putting them on their shelves or paying the consumers for buying them?

“It's the biggest game on earth….”

NO IT ISN’T!!

The biggest game on earth is sustainability.

Climate change is a subset.

Paul Gilding doesn’t even spare a thought for sustainability. He doesn’t mention the continuously increasing numbers of consumers of fossil fuels and all sorts of other resources. He addresses only the per-capita reduction side of the equation.

“We are entering a different world. Deep turbulence is ahead. Hold on for the ride.”

The turbulence will be all the deeper if good people like Paul don’t put a good deal of their efforts directly into overall sustainability and just continue to plug away at lower levels while allowing the continuous growth paradigm and rampant antisustainability momentum to remain entrenched and unquestioned.

I heard Mike Hawker from IAG being interviewed on ABC radio about carbon trading. He was saying that businesses have to know now what the carbon trading scheme will look like so they can plan their investment decisions to be viable in 10, 15 and 20 years time.

This complex sounding scheme is all about reducing carbon emissions to slow down the damage we are doing to the earth so that we still have a sustainable biosphere to hand on to our children and grandchildren.

Its good to see the coal industry and Rio Tinto named as villians of the piece and the author confirmed my suspicion that Kevin Rudd lacks environmental credentials. Nope, I don't want Australia to take Argentina's place of having had a great standard of living.

Thank you OLO for giving us with this article.

Using the free-market to solve problems makes sense. It is with some irony that the market economy, so often attacked by environmentalists, the only way of systematically reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Both sides of politics realise this, which is a very comforting idea.

With a price for carbon (and other greenhouse gases) dynamic companies will thrive. Innovation will continue. Human ideas and human capital will be at an advantage.

A simple example: When a business improves energy efficiency, it may take years for a return on that investment. With a price for carbon, the return is achieved faster. Dynamic efficent companies are at an advantage -- an advantage that will translate into other areas.

Could agree slightly, David, but there is an old saying of the 1930s - never give Big Biz too much rope. Reckon it's better to put meters on their smokestacks and discharge pipes, as was talked about years ago.

It is true that many of the big companies are now run by people whose main aim is profit, like with the big oil corporates in Nigeria, who don't give a hoot who gets the money for the big oil concessions, with beggars still in the streets and black politicians just living it up on the rake-offs they're getting.

We really don't want big corporate directors running our world, David. Which unfortunately, as with Dick Cheney, we've got 'em right up next in line.

Yes, just meter their pipes and tax the big corporates, David, for most of 'em are run by just plain racketeers who can easily afford it.

Please check on the total wealth of companies like Exxon, mate, and find out who's really calling the global tune.