Opposition delivers carbon trade ultimatum - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The Government wants its legislation passed by June but Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says the vote must wait until the outcome of climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

He also says Australia should wait until emissions trading legislation is passed in the United States, which is expected to happen later in the year.

"I know that Mr Rudd in his vanity wants to go to Copenhagen with his own legislation and he no doubt believes that the rest of the world will be so taken with his cleverness that they will all line up and copy what he has done in Australia," Mr Turnbull told a news conference today.

"That may be a dream of his, but it is a fantasy."

BBC - Climate Change: The Blog of Bloom: Screaming into the future: The 'upbeat but scary' vision of Anthony Giddens

Considering that Lord Giddens' book advises that 'fear is not necessarily the best motivator to get people to respond to climate change', it came as a surprise to see the lithe 71-year-old brandishing Edvard Munch's 'The Scream', a painting of a terror-stricken figure wailing against a blood red Oslofjord skyline (which is actually 'a scream echoing through the Earth', Giddens explained).

A scream that the public can't hear, he went on to say. 'Because climate change isn't a tangible danger, the public is effectively sitting on its hands and doing nothing to tackle it. Yet if we wait until climate change is visible, it will be, by definition, too late'. (Adding, with an embarrassed smile, that he dubs this dilemma, the 'Giddens Paradox'.)
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And the prevailing mood of the crowd attending Lord Giddens' Q&A? Here's a flavour: a question that started with, 'Wouldn't you say that carbon trading is at best a con and at worst a profit-generating...' was drowned out in uproarious applause. And it's also my duty to report that the Guardian is operating from the festival in a honest-to-goodness yurt.