Stern report non-panic signalled

The Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, has signalled that he will not be “panicked” into harming Australian industry in response to the threat of climate change.

This leaves Australian political observers to speculate on just what approach the PM will take with regard to the threat. Widely tipped are:

• do nothing, or as little as possible, and try to keep quiet about it
• talk a lot about doing a lot, while doing very little
• set up a closed door inquiry on even more noisy ways of doing very little