From high ideals to modest goals | The Australian

Garnaut has also dropped his cavalier attitude to a national emissions trading scheme, previously calling for an aggressive approach, welcoming a higher world price on carbon. Now his starting point is considerably more constrained: a capped price of permits starting at $20 a tonne in 2010, and pretty much staying there until a global deal has been brokered.

Garnaut is upbeat about this happening at climate change talks in Copenhagen at the end of next year. Few in the know share his optimism.