Tor Hundloe calling for sensible debate on climate change? Now I've heard everything. Does he mean the kind of "debate" that the old windbag subjected Bjorn Blomberg's audience to at UQ? We came to hear a noted climate sceptic but got 20 minutes of cynical "perceptual pre-positioning" by some sort of tenured old fart. But the green rent-a-crowd lapped it up anyway.

Why should Kevin Rudd work with John Howard on the issue of climate change? The only possible result of that would be 1. a more conservative approach to the issue than Rudd is offering, which is already too conservative; and 2. squandering a key political advantage Rudd has over Howard.

Incidentally, did anybody else detect the cynicism of Turnbull announcing the Federal Government's proposal to dam the Northern Rivers and pipeline the water to SE Queensland the night before the PM meets with the Premiers? Given Beattie's water problems it is hard to imagine a more cynical ploy to divide and conquer the unity of the Labor premiers.

I agree that putting a price on carbon emissions is an essential first step, hopefully in a way that makes avoidance difficult. An example of the latter is paying the Indonesians a piddling amount to conserve their forests. Despite the rhetoric it seems clear neither major party is fair dinkum on climate change. For example Costello wants faster coal loaders to make it easier for other countries to pollute our shared atmosphere. Rudd claims clean coal technology is the answer despite the absence anywhere of a viable power station operating under normal conditions. It's all talk and no action. If this is one of the gravest problems we face then perhaps politicians are no longer up to the challenge.

Taswegian wrote "....perhaps politicians are no longer up to the challenge."
Politicians will never be up to the challenge. All they ever think about is staying in power for another term and sucking up to big business.
Perhaps what we need is a political body for administration purposes and a totally seperate Worldwide NGO who has the sole task of making sure that every living organism on the face of the planet has a future.
But of course, that will never happen simply because people are too tied to their wasteful and Earth destroying petty little lives. Humanity is pre-programmed to desire more and more. Big business has so far been up to the challenge in providing more and more. More toys such as DVD's digital and pay TV, bigger vehicles with every mod con and huge McMansions that the average family really doesn't need.
There is and can only ever be one solution to the mess humanity has created and nature will show us how to clean up our mess in due course.
Mother Earth has given us so much, seen that we are incapably of using it wisely and will take it away in dramatic fashion. It's unfortunate that we'll all suffer because of political inactivity, but that's simply the nature of the beast. Best start preparing for a World very different to the one we've come to love.
Wildcat.

Can they work together? The answer is already known. No, they wont, not can't, won't.

As to debate, what is there to debate? Nothing. We should instead simply be preparing for the already changed climate as well as the coming changes.

Turnbull's pipeline from NSW to QLD is one of the few good ideas we've yet heard. Something practical, Australian and will work. So everyone opposes it of course.

Can they work together. NO.

Why? They don't have anything but their own political short term interests at heart. Nothing else. Both sides.

Do yourself a favour and put the big 2 last and second last on your ballot paper. Think instead of barracking.

“The other thing Rudd’s inquiry could do is to tackle two issues that are germane to the amount of greenhouse gases we emit. Population, obviously at a global level, but also in Australia, will eventually need to be limited”.

Well of course. But the most attention that population stabilisation in Australia ever gets in relation to climate change is a brief mention.

It is far more important than this. In fact it is just completely ludicrous to be striving to reduce per-capita GHG emissions while at the same time accepting a rapid increase in the number of ‘capitas’.

But even more important than this, Rudd’s inquiry should not just be based on climate change, it should be based on the development a sustainability strategy.

Nationally or globally, I don’t think we’ve got a hope in hell of really dealing with climate change. The most we will ever be able to achieve is a bit of slow-down in the rate of emissions, which may well ultimately worsen the situation. A rapid peak and crash in emissions may well be much less damaging in the long term.

Real action won’t happen in Australia until we are forced into it by peak oil price rises…. and even then it will only go so far as we will still be burning and exporting coal for decades longer at least.

But we can develop a sustainability strategy in Australia. This is vastly more important battling to do our bit towards climate change.