Trouble is already afoot in Copenhagen (seriously, it's always so much fun when leaders of the world come together to "talk." It's the best reality TV around). An agreement, now known as The Danish Text has been leaked- a draft proposal for the final agreement of the summit. The agreement was created in secret by the circle of commitment, including our very own Prime Minister Rudd- HomepageDAILY's International Politics Editor Sumer Dayal looks into the text and wades through the mess.

Here's the political reality: those who benefit from, or depend upon, the status quo are going to fight dirty against any meaningful change. They will see radical change as a mortal threat. In practice, this means that the carbon industries (especially coal), wealthy suburbanites (whose lifestyles, jobs and investments are most likely to generate extremely large carbon footprints) and conservative extremists (whose market fundamentalism finds itself at odds with the reality-based community) will be in the future, as now, the sworn enemies of intelligent change (or, as they would have it, "skeptics").

We aren't going to change that, for reasons that are deeply entrenched in our societies, and these are extremely powerful interests, with the ability to at least slow real national progress. Thus we have a need (radical change) which is blocked by a political reality. In such a conflict, even the most fundamental of steps - a real international price on carbon - will be an extremely hard-fought victory at the national level in all our countries.

We need national action, but maybe it's time to rethink the rest of the approach. After all, legislation and markets, while absolutely essential, represent only one instrument in the tool chest we need to fight climate catastrophe. We also need technical invention, widespread innovation diffusion, new models and new approaches. And these things are much more difficult for the carbon lobby to stymie, if done at the proper combination of local and regional levels.

From Coldplay to Leonardo diCaprio to Al Gore, influential environmentalists are increasingly modeling green behavior by neutralizing their carbon emissions through carbon offsets. Offsets are based on the notion that consumers can balance out carbon intensive activities, like travel, by contributing to projects that reduce greenhouse gases... But just as buying indulgences in the Middle Ages never really erased your sins, carbon offsets rarely counteract your carbon use...

For over a decade, governments and non-profit foundations in the developed world have been offering large sums of money to developing countries in exchange for tree plantations, also known as “carbon sinks”. However scientists point out that there is a major difference between the kind of carbon emitted from the burning of fossil fuels and the kind of carbon stored by trees... Once out of the ground and into the air via cars, coal extraction, etc., fossil carbon joins the active carbon pool. It will not return to the fossil carbon pool for millennia. So, the carbon absorbed by trees does not zero out the carbon emitted by airplanes... Even if the carbon were equivalent, trees are not necessarily reliable carbon storehouses... when trees burn, rot, or are chopped down, they release any carbon they have stored...

Frequently, carbon sinks displace local populations, generating poverty, inequality, and food and water scarcity. They also drastically reduce biological diversity. In turn, the erosion of resources at every level exacerbates local conflicts. Even more seriously, some carbon offset tree plantations have become an excuse for human rights violations. [More]

The Australian Minister for Climate Change Penny Wong was in Sydney speaking to a full house of 400-500 avoiding the elephant in the room. Penny signed Kyoto, for which the audience gave her great applause. Then she began defending the coal industry, saying we have to create a market price for CO2 emissions, spend most of our research money on "Clean Coal" and trust the market to come up with a solution. It won't, Penny.

George Monbiot yesterday gave the crucial figures that need repeating. Capturing (+ burying) carbon from existing coal plants (if it works) will cost A$151-259 per tonne of CO2 whereas the Australian Govt is talking about A$20 per tonne initial price for CO2 emissions. The coal burning power stations will always choose to pay $20 or $50 or $100 per tonne rather than install carbon capture systems that will cost $150-250 per tonne.

Dr Ben McNeil, ARC QEII Research Fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre UNSW, gave the crucial evidence. He was chosen by Penny to give the big picture of the science. At one point he asked "why, if the car industry spends 4-5% on research, why does the mining resources industry spend only 0.3%". Because they know carbon capture is not going to work, Ben. Because even if a technological miracle makes it possible it will cost at least an extra A$150-250 per tonne, doubling or tripling the current retail price and that will be more expensive than existing solar, wind, hydro technology.

This is the elephant that Penny Wong and most Australian and British government members are furiously avoiding, planning and announcing new coal burning stations - the British in Kingsnorth and the Australians in Latrobe - even though their scientists are telling them it will always be too expensive to make them clean. It's like they've entered into an international pact with Coal. This is madness and Penny with her calm, reasonable argument is in the middle of it.

The movement for a Green New Deal is gathering pace. This is not just about the reinvigoration of Keynesian economic principles to fight climate change, but also the need for a radical metaphor for reform - and a bold language of hope - that lives up to this definining challenge of our age. SARAH BARNS considers the language of climate change reform.

It is wonderful that President W Bush has declared a specific date 2025 for capping Carbon emissions. It is wonderfully absurdly wonderful because now the calculations can be made of exactly how many billions of tonnes of extra carbon the American nation (remember he does speak for America and for John McCain and perhaps Hillary) believe can be pumped into the environment every year from now until 2025 and what the resulting parts per million in the atmosphere will be.

The figures will be astounding if we presume every country in the whole world growing on a “business as usual” basis with a bit of tapering off to stop growing by 2025. Though W has not given any details the New York Times believes he wants to see emissions growing until they naturally stop growing about 2025 and his plan is to derail a Republican move in the U.S. Senate that would try to actually reduce the 2005 level. Of course now that China is the largest carbon emitter Bush will be “helping” China’s economy more than America’s but that bit of stupidity doesn’t surprise me.

The wonderful thing is that in moving from the “growth forever” paradigm, Bush has admitted there is a physical limit and now it’s up to scientists to do the calculations and tell us how many parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere this new official American policy will mean and what that will do to the environment. IT'S OFFICIAL, THE FIGURE CAN BE CALCULATED. CAN SOMEONE SEND BACK SOME FIGURES.