Opposition in disarray over climate

A slew of articles in the press about the ETS, brought on by the party room shenanigans earlier in the week, and also by Brendan Nelson's speech to parliament. Tony Abbott has rejected Nelson's call to reject the ETS:

Former Opposition leader Brendan Nelson urged Parliament to not support a carbon pollution reduction program before the world's three major emitters had declared their position.

But Mr Abbott said the constituency opposing action on climate change was not wide enough.

"Yes, in the end politicians do have to be people of conviction but we also have to win elections," he told ABC Television last night.

"There's always a tension between those two objectives."

Business people who wanted the coalition to "oppose the legislation to the death" needed to make their view "absolutely, crystal clear", he added.

"People like myself feel very, very unhappy with the Government's legislation but I'm not sure that's the message we're uniformly getting from the wider constituency."

So in other words, we're voting for the ETS because we don't want to force an election? Sounds like bad politics to me. It's bad legislation and should be opposed outright. At the same time, however, there are signs that the future for Turnbull will be very tricky:

Turnbull retains strong support in the shadow cabinet and the backing of the partyroom for his strategy of proposing amendments to the government's laws when they are returned to the Senate in November.

His spokesman on emissions trading, Andrew Robb, has sought detailed submissions from business groups about changes they would support.

But the dissent within the Coalition is increasing: not just from the Nationals who are now almost certain to go their own way on the issue, but from many Liberals as well, who argue that by opposing the scheme the Liberals would be "standing for something".

And just to finish off: Greenland 'could melt faster than thought' - I wonder when we'll see the story "Greenland 'could melt slower than thought'? Never, because studies like that never make the media.

Read it here and here.