The idea that Australia has to ‘lead’ on emissions cuts is not only arrogant but downright stupid. Rudd got a raspberry from both China and India. He will have his work cut out leading Australia; he is certainly not up to leading the world on anything.

The very thought of a country like Australia – love it though we do - leading the world, is ludicrous. It’s as laughable as the Asia/Pacific equivalent of the EU that Rudd came up with, thinking the countries actually situated in Asia would welcome the ratty brainstorm from a person who thinks he is the Great White Hope.

Nobody even knows what an acceptable measure of carbon is, so there is no way to gauge how damaging our piddling 1.4% is or is or is not.

The cracks in Rudd’s confidence are already showing with the 6 month extension after 2010 now announced. Last night on the “7.30 Report”, he was using the same words (they could not be called answers) for completely different questions, and looking shiftier all the time.

The biggest joke of all is that this character claims to be interested in cutting back on CO2 emissions while his Immigration Minister is boasting that the massive immigration of unskilled workers will be even bigger this year.

The propaganda that climate change is man-made – not natural as it has been through the ages – is very useful at the moment for politicians like Kevin Rudd to take the focus off what he is stuffing up in other areas – health, education, immigration, prices and allowing our industries to be nabbed by foreigners.

Hopefully voters will wake up to the scam well before 2010.

But, Mr. Right, you agree with Greg Sheridan... lol...

We're not leading the world. Other countries, and California, already have it in place.

It's interesting that still no-one has re-mentioned that one of the defences that China has used in the past is "if somewhere like Australia can't be bothered, why should we?"

Mr Right: "The very thought of a country like Australia" ... "leading the world, is ludicrous."

You have confused 'lead' as in 'being first' with 'lead' as in 'leadership'. We will not be first by any means, as other countries are well ahead.

Mr Right: "Nobody even knows what an acceptable measure of carbon is" ... "The propaganda that climate change is man-made" ...

Still peddling the same old rubbish in every climate thread you can find I see. Given that you are at odds with the vast majority of climate scientists, and since you clearly wouldn't know Saturn from Uranus when it comes to science, nobody with any sense should take you seriously.

Johnsamuels, I have a huge problem with tree planting schemes such as Greenfleet (your link). The latest I heard was that a tree has to be 12 years old before it starts to capture any significant carbon. And when it is really large in a hundred or so years and its timber and roots weigh 100 tonnes, only 10 of those tonnes will be captured carbon. On top of that, much of the tree planting is being done in marginal areas where growth is poor, and one company is touting plantings of mallee, because 'they re-grow when they are burnt' (and release all their stored carbon!).

I'm all for growing forests, but pretending that 17 little tubestock trees will offset a year of car emissions is, to put it politely, misleading. A $51 payment to Greenfleet may leave you feeling warm and fuzzy, but will do very little to address CO2 levels and nothing at all to change our behaviour,

What Lomborg is saying, actually makes sense to me.

Australia can pontificate to the world, all that it wants,
we can spend our time trading carbon schemes, all that
we want, but the solution is innovation and good science
and investment in these.

Somebody mentioned lead/acid batteries. This is very
old technology. Who is to say that there are not much
better and cheaper options for energy storage?

What is required is some serious money being thrown
at r&d in these areas, by both Govt and private
enterprise. New energy sources, new storage methods,
etc, all need developing and for that it needs finance.

The Australian solution, is going to involve little more
then heaps of time invested on the feelgood factor, its
not going to provide any solutions.

Everyone will trade their carbon credits, wheras the real
solution is new science and innovation, to discover things
that we don't yet know.

Candide -

This is GreenRoads though, they do it for free. Greenfleets does the planting for the Greenroads initiative, which is in turn sponsored by Sensis. Completely free for the consumer.

Also about the tree age. You've got it backwards. A tree is sequestering carbon all through its growth stage, which is obviously its youngest years. Older trees which hardly increase in size each year actually produce carbon rather than sequester it.