Wong's grand plan is nothing of the sort

This is Penny Wong's brilliant idea to get agreement at Copenhagen. Again, living in a kind of fantasy world, where she really believes that the whole world will take notice of the proposals of a country that contributes 1.5% of global emissions. I'm sure the world will listen politely, like one does to a demented great aunt, say "That's nice dear" and then get back to the real world:

AUSTRALIA has unveiled a compromise proposal to break the deadlocked Copenhagen climate change negotiations that offers developing countries a more flexible way to pledge their efforts towards global greenhouse gas reductions.

Under the compromise proposal, to be announced by Climate Change Minister Penny Wong today, developing countries would not have to commit to binding, economy-wide emission-reduction targets. But they would have to submit their own binding "schedule" of how and where their reductions could be made.

The idea has been described by US President Barack Obama's special climate change envoy, Todd Stern, as a "constructive proposal".

But then comes the big issue:

In what appears to be a reference to China and India, she will say the developing countries with "greater capacity and responsibility" would have to promise actions that added up to "significant reductions below baselines".

So although developing countries submit their own schedules, China and India's schedule would have to meet certain criteria to be acceptable? What are those criteria, Penny? Because, to be honest, only China and India matter in all this. And if you start setting criteria for China and India, you're back to, er, exactly where you started. Brilliant.

Read it here.