Obama is clearly uninterested, Europe is LaLa Land, China and India are quite understandably not going to commit and the ETS is going to become a millstone. The only saving grace from Labor’s perspective is that Turnbull backed it. Although Labor-dominated, there are some significant Liberal figures on the Swan initiated committee of review.

I agree. They are looking for an excuse to exit.

I thought a Carbon Tax was the cheapest, simplest and most transparent way of reducing carbon emissions — and the only reason we’re going the trading route was because it takes a long time set up (so delaying action) and is nice and complicated so that the polluters cannot only avoid their obligations but might actually make a profit out of destroying our future.

To put the ETS scheme and what it might achieve in perspective just two articles from todays Australian, one of which cited in the above piece.

1.VICTORIA’S bushfires have released a massive amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - almost equal to Australia’s industrial emission for an entire year.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25047322-11949,00.html

2.SOMEBODY has now put a price on the symbolic act of Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong flying to Bali within days of Labor’s election in 2007 and ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. It’s a potential extra $870 million from Australian taxpayers…..In the first four years of the emissions trading scheme, Australian industry is expected to buy $49.9 billion in carbon permits to encourage cleaner industry.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25046600-7583,00.html

Ideally the Government has got worried and its laughable ETS won’t proceed. At least we’ll be spared a giant paper chase that wastes money and does nothing to reduce emissions. We can then move on to lesser but more politically workable options for reducing our carbon protectionism.