"the economic cost of substantially reducing emmissions will be large. In fact, many have estimated the costs of prevention to be much higher than the costs of global warming.

Such as who? The stern report clearly indicated that the cost of reducing emissions are far less than the predictable short term costs. Furthermore, with a policy like carbon taxes, we could achieve significant reductions at very little cost to the economy.

"If China and India are not asked to reduce their emmissions, and it's only the developped nations that are asked to cut down, the reductaions madce will be minimal, if even existent.

No-one is suggesting we don't ask them to keep theirr emissions in check also. As I pointed out, they are well ahead of us. However, to suggest that we be allowed to emit far more than them on a per captia basis indefintiely is clearly absurd.

"What is proposed is simply a formula for exporting jobs

No it isn't. Consider where most of our emissions come from. Will we start driving our cars overseas? Will we start producing our electricity overseas?

"Lowering Australia's "per capita CO2 emissions" unfortunately will not make a scrap of difference to atmospheric CO2

No individual or small group of people can make a big difference on their own. But that kind of misses the point doesn't it?

It all does not matter.
The IPCC studies are based on the economy growing and no restriction
in the amount of hydrocarbon fuels available.
This is unrealistic, so it does not matter what the climate models
produce they are just working on duff data.

Foxy, I agree that most answers are not technological. For the most part, the answers are economic. Economic solutions are necessary to achieve significant change without unnecessary harm to the economy. Economic solutions alone are sufficient in terms of government policy.

http://www.ozpolitic.com/green-tax-shift/green-tax-shift.html

Bazz, so far the IPCC has underestimated emissions and they have to keep adjusting their projections upward because they made the mistake of assuming countries like the US and Australia would respond rationally to the threat. We have enough coal for at least a centurry or two and the technology is available to produce oil from coal, shale, tar sands etc as is necessary. It is nothing short of naive to expect us to run out of fossil fuels in time to prevent serious climate change.

BTW, can you give a reference on the assumptions regarding hydrocarbon availability?

Hello Freediver,
The depletion to which I referred was world depletion rates.
World coal will peak somewhere between 2025 and 2035.
Australia may have the 100 to 200 years worth but I am not certain
that is so. I must have a look at German Energy watch coal report.
They found that there was a lot less coal reserve that everyone thought.

It does not matter what rules are brought in, who measures what, it is
all irrelevant, if the fuel is not there in the quantities expected it
won't be emit the CO2 expected.
The globe might warm up, but it won't have the human input of CO2 that
the IPCC did its work on.

It is hard to believe that it took all this time for someone to wake
up to this. We have gone so far down the panic slope that it will be
virtually impossible to turn the Titanic around.
After all the politicians have got hold of it and they are not going to
admit they got it wrong.

So basically your argument is that everyone is wrong - they have for some reason failed to noticed the elephant in the living room - that fossil fuels are about to run out anyway?

That's a big if. I think I was discussing that German report with you in another thread. I finally got you to link to it and the link went to a site that didn't even work. You still haven't fessed up to what assumptions they made, possibly because you can't read the report either.

Still, if anyone has any real data on world coal supplies, I would be interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak_theory

Pennsylvania's coal production also matches Hubbert's curve closely, but this does not mean that coal in Pennsylvania is exhausted--far from it. If production in Pennsylvania returned at its all time high, there are reserves for 190 years. Hubbert had recoverable coal reserves worldwide at 2500 × 109 metric tons and peaking around 2150 (depending on usage).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal#World_coal_reserves

In 2003 it was estimated that there was around one exagram (1 × 1015 kg or 998 billion tons) of total coal reserves accessible using current mining technology, approximately half of it being hard coal. The energy value of all the world's recoverable coal is 27 zettajoules,[29] which is expected to last 200 years. At the current global total energy consumption of 15 terawatt,[30] there is enough coal to provide the entire planet with all of its energy for 57 years

British Petroleum, in its annual report 2007, estimated at 2006 end, there were 909,064 million tons of proven coal reserves worldwide (9.236 × 1014 kg or 0.9236 exagrams), or 147 years reserve to production ratio.

The United States Department of Energy uses estimates of coal reserves in the region of 1,081,279 million short tons (9.81 × 1014 kg)

Freediver,

“… so far the IPCC has underestimated emissions and they have to keep adjusting their projections upward because they made the mistake of assuming countries like the US and Australia would respond rationally to the threat.”

NO!!

The IPCC does not assume anything of the sort and it is very vacuous to say they do. I would suggest you refer to the IPCC website I gave previously and read about their procedures and processes.

Bazz/Freediver,

As to hydrocarbon availability, the video link at this site is well worth watching.

http://rutledge.caltech.edu/

Bazz,

I have tried to explain to you previously about SRES and your assertions about the IPCC and hydrocarbon mis/use – you have obviously not understood or I have failed to communicate with you. You (anyone) can have an opinion, BUT it must be based on sound premise or argument – otherwise you are likely to confuse the issues at best or intentionally misrepresenting the issues at worst.

Everybody,

It is up to stakeholders and decision makers on how (and when) they are to deal with the problems we (humanity) are facing in terms of *climate change*.

We are told that there are solutions, some easy and some not so easy. It would be prudent to start implementing them sooner, rather than later.

You may also like to visit the UNFCCC website here.

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

Their meeting in Bali next month will enter a crucial stage for post-2012