Can't help myself... have to get back into the debate!
Reading back through the replies I'm still annoyed to see that many people still doubt the existence of global warming at all. I prefer to side with the peer reviewed scientific literature which confirms that global warming DOES exist. I also agree with other recent peer reviewed scientific literature which suggests that the effects of global warming are slower than first thought and while we will see the effects, it will take a lot longer to do so (Essentially meaning generations further down the track will have to deal with this mess)
I would consider myself a Labor voter (Even though I have never actually been able to vote before) but in no way would I be voting Liberal this next election, the details of their "Climate action plan" sound pretty strange to me, I couldn't actually download the policy from their website before to read it either. The Carbon Tax is a good thing in that it shows that a government has the guts to stand up and acknowledge global warming as a real issue and to do something about it, not just leave it for generations down the track to clean up.
Is it actually going to make a difference to climate change? Probably not. Will companies move to implement less polluting ways of producing energy? Probably not, but that is the nature of the capitalist society that we live in. No one will sacrifice even a small percentage of their billions of dollars in profits to take a risk. But at least it is being acknowledged as an issue and not just being swept under the carpet like the right would love to do so much.
The Carbon Tax should be called the pollution tax, and it should be applied to different types of greenhouse gases, not just CO2. Including methane would be a good one which would stick it to the bloody Coal Seam Gas industry
The price on carbon should start out at much much less also, if it was up to me I wouldn't be starting it at ~$20 a tonne, more like $1 or $2 a tonne. It would still be there and probably wouldn't result in any visible cost increases but it means companies would have to think about it. A reverse tax may work even better, where companies get incentives to cut their pollution rather than being charged to pollute, but they would have to be worthwhile incentives to lead to a big change, otherwise no one will take them. And making the incentives big enough would be expensive.
I find this site interesting:
Worldometers - real time world statistics
Specifically the sections on the environment and energy. Demonstrates the potential for solar energy with the amount striking the Earth each day. I hope that solar farms in the desert will be something I see within my lifetime. Also this doesn't seem like a bad idea either:
That's my 2c for now.