Too green is no good | The Australian

Garnaut's latest report encourages the idea that a full-blown global emissions trading scheme simply won't fly. Australia's other leading climate change economist, Warwick McKibbin, suggests that any such scheme would soon collapse because it would be too difficult to monitor and enforce each country's emissions targets, thus devaluing emissions permits. Leading US economist Jeffrey Sachs describes such schemes as an administrative mess.

Australians may feel good when telling pollsters they are prepared to sacrifice, but neither Rudd nor Brendan Nelson is game enough to test this by exposing motorists to climate change costs before 2013. Until the weekend, the Government of Australia's resources boom state banned the mining of uranium that could help other countries curb their emissions. That's hardly credible for a nation claiming it is prepared to wear the economic costs of leading the world in tackling climate change.