But what should we do?

Rather than tell you my reservations about an emission trading scheme (ETS), let me suggest an alternative. A warning, though, it’s in early draft form. I wrote it on the back of an envelope while sitting in a traffic jam.

I’ve called my plan the TRB scheme: Tax, Regulate, Build.

The TRB has attractions, I think. One is that the TRB doesn’t have a blind faith in ‘the market’ like the ETS does. Second, it addresses the need for public infrastructure. An ETS doesn’t. Third, it can start straight away, be added to, be refined. It’s flexible. Fourth, it contains things that, to me, are desirable even without the need to address global warming.

My TRB scheme has eleven points. Some are easy, low hanging fruit, as they say.

1. Introduce a carbon tax instead of a permit scheme. Make the carbon polluter pay each time the product is made. Tax carbon imports. Use all the revenues to fund the public works program. Make the total annual carbon tax collection equal to the cost of the public works program. Show the public where the money’s going.

2. Build public transport, lots of it.

3. Concentrate all new employment in regional centres to make it easy for people to use public transport to get to work.

4. Regulate to make all new cars and trucks meet low emissions targets. Tax the old ones off the road.

5. Build efficient freight rail systems and demand the freight companies use them

6. Regulate to make all buildings, residential and commercial, new and old, comply with 6-star energy ratings.

7. Regulate to make all products infinitely recyclable. Tax waste out of existence.

8. Build motorways and arterial roads that do their job.

I have no idea how to do the next two. But proponents of an ETS have put these in the too hard basket as well, so I have an excuse for being vague.

9. Substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our farms.

10. Shift rapidly out of coal-powered electricity generation.

My number 11 could well be the most important of all.

11. Export our excellent new technologies and best practices to third world nations to show how they too can achieve a high standard of living without cooking the planet.

*Phillip O'Neill is Professor and Director of the Urban Research Centre for the University of Western Sydney. He regularly comments on matters affecting Sydney.