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This commentary replies to Joshua Newman's article and 'counter narrative' about the Rudd government's proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), shelved in 2010. Newman argues that other analyses of the CPRS amount to a 'prevailing narrative' that Labor should have pursued an alliance with the Greens and independents for stronger climate mitigation policy rather than bipartisan Coalition support in parliament. His narrower empirical focus on parliamentary norms and practices is not sufficient for establishing a compelling explanation of the events surrounding the CPRS. Newman's analysis is valuable, but it gives us a weak grip on the key issues of interpretation and explanation we're all facing with regard to that political moment. I reflect on the methodological challenges when establishing meaning and causation in political analysis of the CPRS because it involves evaluating party-political strategy amid a deepening crisis for the state as it (mis)manages climate change with ad hoc market solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost two decades since the Kyoto Protocol was adopted, global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising rapidly. We argue that the global climate policy focus on carbon markets has played a significant role in the failure to reduce emissions. There are 16 compliance carbon markets in operation across the world. Many more are planned, although there have been numerous problems with carbon trading, including ineffectiveness, weak regulation and implementation, instances of fraud, little to no emissions reduction and major legitimacy issues for governments and the private sector. In this paper we take a “strong” position, arguing that carbon markets do not have a role to play in a policy scenario that requires radical emissions reductions in order to avoid dangerous greenhouse gas concentrations. We put forward 10 reasons why carbon markets should not be the preferred climate policy choice, which we have collated from positions taken by grassroots social movement organizations, think tanks, NGOs and other political advocacy groups as well as individual scientists and scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]