There are many things we (humanity) can do to adapt to the consequences of anthropogenic global warming (Bush Administration prefers the term 'climate change') and carbon trading will play a part.

However, it is intrinsically more important to mitigate GHG emissions - this will be crucial.

Taswegian, nuclear is an option, particularly for countries like France and Japan - please don't write it off for all countries. China wants this energy option, can Oz deny them?

We in Australia definitely don't need nuclear power, yet - but maybe one day?

Xoddam, thanks for your contribution - just be aware that explaining technicalities can sometimes have the opposite effect to what you had intended. This is precisely why climate change scientists don't get embroiled with public fora like OLO.

Regards

There seems to be two sets of posters for this article. One side can deliver the dead-eyed facts and seem very knowlegeable about them and their point of view is extremely valid, researched and believeable. The other mob are pragmatists and I agree with them entirely.
Pericles, you hit the nail right on the head. Carbon trading will make a lot of shonks very rich but, apart from that, will achieve nothing. The dollar cost per kilo of CO2 is arbitrary and evolved as the result of a committee meeting.
Everyone knows what must be done, but noone knows how to do it. Ask one of "them" when they say "we gotta stop (pick a chemical) emissions." Ask them how, then stand back and watch either the blank stare or listen to the stammering response."
I don't have a definitive global answer either, but I'm looking for one to believe in and so far nothing's come up. All I can do is what I'm doing personally.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with you Pericles and enkew... carbon trading is likely to end up a huge money making exercise for some leaving others properly screwed - with no reduction in greenhouse gas. For example, DuPont has invited ‘green consumers’ to pay $4 to eliminate a tonne of carbon dioxide from its plant in Kentucky that produces a potent greenhouse gas called HFC-23 - the equipment required to reduce such gases is relatively cheap. DuPont refused to comment and declined to specify its earnings from the project, saying it was at too early a stage to discuss (Hmmm...I wonder why?).

Here’s another example, Blue Source, a US offsetting company, invites consumers to offset carbon emissions by investing in enhanced oil recovery, which pumps carbon dioxide into depleted oil wells to bring up the remaining oil. However, Blue Source said that because of the high price of oil, this process was often profitable in itself, meaning operators were making extra revenues from selling “carbon credits” for burying the carbon.

On top of all of this, most of the developed countries are net importers of energy and we are one of the few net exporters, we stand a much greater risk of being screwed by the decision to ignore the emissions of the developing countries (China overtook the US as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide earlier this year). The UN does not currently propose any mandatory emission targets for developing countries (as if they were able to enforce them anyway).

Yes, for reasons so far unproven, we face climate change. Thrashing around like we are, however, puts us in a far worse predicament in order to face the inevitable.

No “scheme that lacks cast-iron verification [should] see the light of day – ever” and neither should one lacking fairness or credibility.

Just to add something: Let's start discriminating. From now on I'm going to qualify myself by using the term "Human Induced Climate Change" because that's something that can be affected, whereas ordinary old "Climate Change" is inevitable.

enkew,

I don't want to be *too* hubristic, but I think we've established pretty firmly that human activity is of a sufficient scale to affect the climate.

If there were a *natural* climate change that threatened devastation to our economy and the ecology on which it depends, would we not be equally justified in seeking to avert it by changing our behaviour, as we are in attempting to reverse the climate change we have inadvertently caused?

Suppose an asteroid were detected on a collision course with Earth, promising a large crater somewhere or other, a grand tsunami and a few years' "global dimming" with an effect like a dozen Pinatubos or a nuclear winter. Would anyone (except milleniarist nutcases) object to human effort to prevent this entirely natural Act of God?