(I will not rise to the bait on credits and trading. Let's see if the discussion gets off the ground, then come back to it.)

Design an emissions limitation plan for Australia, on the back of an envelope.

Here are some parameters :

* Labor's target for reduction in carbon emissions is
5 to 25 per cent by 2020

• The Greens' target is 25 to 40 per cent by 2020.
  
• The Opposition has backed away from its failed flat-earth election policy of climate denial. They now claim to want unspecified reductions, but claim it can be done for free by regulating power stations, and that it is urgent to do absolutely nothing until everyone else on earth does it first. They can be relied on to drag their feet, and their knuckles, on this issue (they declined to take seats on the climate policy committee). These people will probably be the government in three years' time.
  
• The public want carbon reduction. I would guess that they will accept ambitious targets, if it can be shown that it won't cost them more than a few dollars a week.
  
• The extractive industries want certainty. They currently can not make coherent investment decisions, since they don't know what the constraints will be in five years' time.

Over to you...

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}