In the interest of balance and loathing for all things political.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/14/2770326.htm?site=thedrum

There *appears* to be dodgy accounting in Australia's claimed CO2 emissions. The government has omitted some of the sources to give good looking figures.

If so, shouldn't the government be attacked as being hypocritical?
However, doesn't this make the MM's attack even more opportunist and hypocritical?
Again, if true, what does this say for politics in Australia?
The lessor of two evils or God (who ever that maybe) help us because Politics certainly isn't.

As you've been told a thousand times before, this whole freaking joke has nothing to do with saving the planet and everything to do with making the rich richer!

It's time all the useful-idiots on this planet woke up and stopped hyperventilating tons of carbon into the atmosphere over a big fat lie.

If they really want everyone to go green, just tell all the polluters they've got 5/10 years to become clean or face being shut down. If the polluters can't do it for legitimate reasons, then we need to look at other ways of compensating for those industries. No need to tax anyone, no need to screw our economy and no need to transfer huge wads of cash to poly-ticks that do noooooothing!
Before you know it, industries that have been hiding cleaner cheaper technologies will come out and compete otherwise they're dead!

It all comes down to the modern tendency to govern via image or perception rather than dealing with reality. Without repeating some of the main thrusts of arguments on other threads, the short electoral cycle and party politics is the biggest contributor to spin politics.

For all participating countries, it was always going to be a manipulated presentation of figures and 'facts' - I don't believe Australia would be the only transgressor. No government or nation wants to be first to disadvantage their population in terms of trade or costs of production, they only want to 'appear' to make sacrifices.

Just goes to show how ridiculus the whole argument over carbon is.In the winter our forests take in carbon and in the summer release it through bush fires.All natural phenomina.The want to tax cow flatulance,what next human breathing? It is all a farce.

Water vapour is the greatest warming gas on the planet.Perhaps we should have a cloud tax as well.

Arjay,
No it doesn't, more water in the atmosphere means more fierce storms read the science.

Excess CO2, methane etc because of their chemical make up cause global warming Chemistry (second semester uni)

Ruminant farts can be altered simply by altering their food.
Again this is addressed in the uni lectures I quote.

What this story says is that The Government is still hostage to the big polluters regardless of his claiming the high moral ground.
What it says about our politics is tragic to put it mildly.

Scratching my head at this:
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/down-and-dirty-farm-soil-will-offset-emissions-in-australias-carbon-cut-scheme-20091213-kqhj.html

Only days after our Government exempted agriculture from their carbon scheme it appears there are plans for ag in general, and until we see detail it may not be to the benefit of farmers. History suggests farmers don't receive many thanks for their contributions on behalf of the nation.

"The brilliant “win” for the Federal Government at Kyoto was only the first part of the “trick”. To make it work the Howard Government then had to stop private property owners land-clearing. Not only did they have to stop them but as private property it had to be done at no cost to the Commonwealth."

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/rooted/2009/12/12/carbongate-the-great-carbon-heist/

To my mind the use of soil carbon capture is doing nothing to curb actual emissions, only making us feel better about maintaining the status quo with regard to using fossil fuels. If Carbon is our enemy then we should not be introducing more to the biosphere, fullstop.

If the world wishes to capture fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions alone it needs over an Australia's worth of land area planted to trees each year. Currently the world emits about 28 billion tonnes of CO2 per annum from fossil fuel consumption, and from what I can gather an actively growing plantation forest captures 25 tonnes CO2 per hectare per year. Correct me if I'm wrong but that is approx 1 billion hectares a year required, with the area of Australia being around 800 million hectares. Bio-sequestration of carbon can help but it can't be the solution.