LABOR has leapt on a letter from British Prime Minister David Cameron to Julia Gillard backing the carbon tax to attack Tony Abbott as being “out of step with just about everyone around the world” on climate change. But the Opposition Leader hit back yesterday, dismissing the government’s use of Mr Cameron’s letter as a [...]

ANGER against scientists involved in the climate debate is reaching dangerous levels and it’s only a matter of time before one is murdered, says leading German physicist Hans Schellnhuber. Professor Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change member, said he was amazed by the [...]

The recent and spurious debates over carbon tax have filled the airwaves with opposing and venomous soliloquy. In what is the biggest reform to the Australian economy in many years, arguments from the Liberals appear to be focused, not on a cleaner, greener and therefore safer future, but rather a business as usual scenario. Labor [...]

Planting trees in cleared agricultural landscapes is one way for the land use sector to help offset emissions of atmospheric carbon dioxide. But will it displace agriculture? Establishing trees is a robust method because amounts of carbon sequestered are generally measurable and verifiable. On the other hand, some are concerned that including carbon plantings in [...]

THE remarkable weather extremes of the past decade, including this year’s Queensland and Victorian floods, were not caused by global warming, according to one of Australia’s most eminent climate scientists. Speaking at a major international earth science conference in Melbourne, Professor Neville Nicholls said such extremes as the heat wave in Victoria that accompanied the [...]

Protesters hold placards during a rally in Sydney against prime minister Julia Gillard’s plans to introduce a carbon tax. Photograph: Greg Wood/AFP/Getty Images Locals call this city “carbon central”. But in the polarised Australian climate change debate, this mining hub is not central at all, but firmly positioned at one extreme. Wollongong, 50 miles south of Sydney [...]

THE Gillard government is putting together a $3 billion package to promote clean energy, pay for the closure of Australia’s dirtiest brown coal-fired power plants and avoid systemic failure of electricity supply in southeast Australia. But having exempted petrol from the carbon tax, lifted the renewable energy fund to satisfy Greens’ demands and provided finance [...]

PARIS — The world’s association of camel scientists fought back angrily on Monday over Australian plans to kill wild dromedaries on the grounds that their flatulence adds to global warming. The idea is “false and stupid… a scientific aberration”, the International Society of Camelid Research and Development (ISOCARD) charged, saying camels were being made culprits [...]

Expect much sound and fury over the coming weeks as the government and its partners unveil a price of carbon and the related compensation programs aimed at calming consumers’ fears. Power generators will be among the industries voicing the loudest complaints as their base fuel – mostly coal – becomes central to a system that [...]

Volcanic ash clouds might not be all bad and there is even some comparatively good news in the study of rising sea levels. Both issues will be up for discussion in the coming week at the 25th general assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) which opens on Wednesday in Melbourne. Discussion [...]