"How will Australia be perceived by other countries attending the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change?"

Much like a loud, overbearing, know it all, finger wagging, moralizing bully would - if we arrive telling everyone how they should run their lives, economies and how much they "should look at us" for an example.

What size ego do we need to turn up with such ambitions?

Krudd has the spine of a jelly fish.

What promises has he actually kept?

The real lack of political will is demonstrated by the lack of leadership shown by all political parties with the exception of the National Party. CO2 induced climate change is a total myth and any person who is hooked on the Al Gore and others theory are being manipulated by the media and people such as the author of this post. Fortunately we will be over all this rubbish within 5 years.

Only the Greens have shown a steadfast political will for introducing the necessary strategic policies required to minimise greenhouse gas emmissions to 450ppm.

They deserve to win government. The government and opposition have little to distinguish themselves on carbon pollution reduction - both have put the short, medium and long-term interests of the coal industry above all else.

We deserve to be regarded and treated as an environmental parriah state at Copenhagen for our weak policy response.

The reason any effort we may have made died is down to Rudd and his BS
Further Garnaut rubbish and exaggeration finished it off .
If CO2 really is the problem , which is in my view problematic , then we should reduce our coal exports on a sliding scale to allow people employed in the coal biz to seek employment else where .

We could have done Solar Panels , heaps of people were ready to go with it , it works ! If the jet setter Rudd had stayed home we could have Solar paneled a lot of Homes , 1/2 of SA perhaps ? Wealthy people were on board ready to go but Rudd needs a "Le Grand Gesture"to feed his ego so all we got was light bulbs again BS no gain .

We need sensible people to fight global warming ( I am a skeptic , how can ice melt where the Temp hardly gets above zero ) Professors are never sensible people , Garnaut's only contribution has been loose talk and panic propagation and where has that got us , a double zero .

Something tells me exiting fumes into the atmosphere on the scale we do must be harmful , why don't we do something about that ? Progress this way will not cause unemployment .

Reduce car engine capacity to 1000 cc's and fuel it with CNG , if your in a hurry be a brain and go by train . The early Beetles were 1100 CC's the FIAT 500 cc's 2CV Citroen 800cc's (I think) and the 1935 Morris 850 now here is a story , my Dad's Morris had a home made Gasifier mounted on the rear bumper , it burnt Red gum and steam introduced into the base of the firebox this caused a catalytic reaction producing Hydrogen , so it was running on Carbon Monoxide and Hydrogen after a mile when it heated up so from Piangil to Bendigo about 145 miles cost him 2 pints of petrol and a cut lunch !
Contd....

Cont'd
Why can't coal be reduced to a gas in a gasifier eg; Clean coal ?

"Non" people like Garnaut , might supply answers to a lot of our problems , another area where we have found "Fantasies Won't Fly" is water . Thousands of people tried to tell Mr Brumby that there was no water available from the Goulburn , so grazillions were spent proving otherwise , now with the "Pipe" closing in on Melb poor Brumby has admitted there is none indeed , gosh !
So back to another fantasy RO Water , a carrot watered with RO water will eventually cost $8 . Car Wash anybody?
The way forward with water is to evaporate the water in a Solar Still then condense the vapor back to water in a Condenser this is what happens in nature I am sure you will agree no fodder for skeptics here . Get a bottle of chilled bubbly out of your fridge hey presto wot's all the water coating the bottle ! Too Easy, proved , the coldness in the bottle is condensing atmospheric water . Want to get excited turn the hot tap on in your shower get some steam about now go get 'nother chilled bottle , tilt the bottle a bit catch the condensate in a glass ....wine of the Gods water gosh too easy !
If you want to know more you need : money , 100 hectares plus , a power supply anywhere from Perth to Melbourne close to the seashore , concrete supply 2000 employee's , 1000 tons sundries , plastic pipe , shade cloth , uv Plastic film , enthusiasm and me .

Somehow we have been conned into thinking that ETS is the best/only way to drive down emissions. However, consider the following two options for encouraging investment in clean electricty:

- Option A (ETS): Carbon permits ae used to push the price of dirty electricty high enough for investment in clean electricity to be justified. PRICE OUTCOME: The average price of electricity has to jump far enough above the cost of producing clean electricity for investment in clean electricity to be justified.

- Option B: Leave the price of dirty electricity unchanged and use price and sales guarantees to drive investment in clean electricity. PRICE OUTCOME: The average price of electricty will ramp up slowly as the percentage of clean electricty rises.

Deciding which option is best is a no-brainer, and the answer isnt ETS. Keep in mind that it is the sudden jump in prices that have got so many people spooked about ETS.

The message is that we can find better, more cost effective ways of driving down emissions if we look at different sources of emission separately and find the best way of dealing with the issues associated with this source. If you like a Multiple Scheme System (MSA).

One more example - Driving down the average fuel consumption of new cars:
- Option A (ETS): Use carbon permits to push up the price of fuel and HOPE that this will drive down the average fuel consumption of new cars. OUTCOME: The average fuel consumption of new cars may drop by an unspecified amount.

- Option B: Leave the price of fuel unchanged and use government regulation to ramp down the average fuel consumption of new cars.

For more details see:

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/climate_ctte/submissions/sub572.pdf

<<Mike.Pope trained as an economist..>>thus..clearly has no science knowledge..[thus..sees the carbon-tax..as an economic/measure to get in a new..global/tax]

ITS THE ECONOMY stupid..lol..its..a new_tax

cast your mind back..[pre the clean/air-act in the late eighties]..the globe was cooling...[now the polution clouds have cleared..the sun penitraits through...lol..[warning the planet

[if we want to cool the globe/DOWN..,is as simple as dirty-ing up the air..[so the heat gets reflected off the clouds..[ie stop/cleaning the smoke]

this auther<<business planner(1966-2006),>>so..thus see this is how he does his economic-BUSINESS..[get more tax from the people to subsidize the speculators..with nice clean/carbon-credit's..[for those same bonus-hungry..derivitives_traitors..on main street]

SEE a big buisness-subsidy here..to increase the real_polutions while increasing the new/industrial bubble..by building non-polutive energy generations systems..[on our tax]..the tax that will be put upon everything..[think of the worst excesses of the past where our import duties increased the cost of the import goods..[so businness could get a subsidy/advantage]

but..tarrifs were bad then..[yet..carbon-tax import/tarrif is good now?

lets call the proposed tarrif..the..scam the carbon-tax really is..[see that spains conversion to green has cost 2.9 jobs for every new job created...lol..dont be fooled that this clobal con will create/jobs

you will be taxed on simply breathing..[while the sun goes on doing what it allways has]..[think]...the sun shinning on your roof supposedly with only 8 solar cells on it..can save you 80 percent of your energy costs...if you could HArvest the whole energy falling on your peoperty/how much more energy is created?..[than you currently are using..if 80 percent can come simply from 8 solar cells[get it?]

we are being conned by enron-esq greedy/econo-MISTS,..trying to put their car-BON tax..[mark]..on everything we buy/sell

realise that the polutants..of re-gearing up industry..is only going to create more carbon..[if coal is bad..put a bad/export tax on it,..not the people..[obviously its price sensative..[so doubling its real cost not only will rake in the bucks from our exports..but allow for its income to offest its cost..to australians..by subsidy[on the cost of it for YOUR people kevin]

you want to lead..[double the cost of coal]..for those seeking it as a quick fix

rpg – I suspect you are right. ShadowMinister – you should know better than to malign jellyfish

John D/ShazBaz001. I don’t think anyone should hold their breath waiting on anyone to give up their cars in the interest of educing emissions. But we could propel vehicles with electricity derived from renewables – and do it a lot cheaper than using fossil fuels. Car makers are moving in this direction, though not in Australia.

If nothing else, a cap and trade ETS will curb CO2 emissions and raise revenue which can be applied to production of cleaner, cheaper electricity. What we need is a mechanism for compelling major polluters to reduce their emissions. A carbon tariff on imports could do it but you may know of better ways.

Mike - The reason we should challenge ETS is that it providing the excuse for the government to delay serious action on emissions to at least 2013. The delay would make sense if ETS were the only way to drive down emissions. The sudden price jumps, uncertaintainity re carbon permit prices and unproductive and/or unecessarily high price increases are all reasons to wait until the economy has recovered.

However, we don't have to wait for ETS to take serious action to reuce emissions. Right now we can afford to regulate down the average fuel consumption of new cars since this doesn't require any increase in fuel price. We can afford to accelerate our investment in clean electricty provided we drive it down with a scheme that only requires the average price of electricty to ramp up slowly in line with the average cost of producing electricty. What is important at the moment is that we start taking real action to drive down to reduce emissions from a limited number of sources instead of stuffing around looking for some grand ETS style scheme that is supposed to be the answer to everything.

On another issue: At the moment we should be pushing the case for plug in hybrid cars instead of pure electrics. Plug in hybrids don't require special infrastructure or better batteries to become practical for both short and long trips. My calcs suggest that I could reduce my petrol consumption by over 80% by using a plug in hybrid with a battery range of only 35 km. (Weekly trip mix of 6x30 km plus 1x100 km.)

Plug in hybrids should evolve into pure electric as power storage and charging technology advances.

John D - Our regulators should be fast tracking approval of both all electrics and hybrids. However, our local car makers should only get the government subsidies for all electrics.

Some of the new all electrics from China already have better batteries and would be ideal for the many drivers who do under 100 km a day. There are many types of hybrids becoming available overseas and Australians should not be excluded by regulatory delays.

A government sponsored trade-in subsidy policy would give all electric cars a giant boost. But where is the political will? Sadly, no sign of it in the 2009/2010 budget.

Sorry Quick response but, at this stage, pure electric cars are an expensive gimmick that are good for only relatively short trips away from home. By contrast, plug in hybrid would allow me to drive anywhere I can drive to in a conventional car while allowing me to drive electric only for most of my normal travel without having to spend megabucks on a long range battery. For my trip pattern, I could acheive one litre/100 km by converting a convetional car that currently consumes 5 litres/100 km. This is a big advance on the current average of over 10 litres/100 km.

I am attracted to technologies that can be introduced without major effort and have the potential to evolve into something better. Pure electric and hydrogen powered cars really need technical breakthroughs and massive instrastructure investment to get started. By contrast, plug in hybrid is already available overseas and doesn't require any extra infrastructure. A more thoughtful government would be focussing on plug in hybrid and introducing regulations now to drive down the average fuel consumption of new cars.

On a similar note I am attracted to solar thermal augmentation of existing power stations because it can start small, grow until daytime augmentation is maximized and then evolve into 24/7 solar power by the use of molten salt heat storage.