It wasn’t long ago I wrote about the federal government’s inaction on climate change, now Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has delayed the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme until at least 2012.

Why has it been delayed? What are the impacts? How will this affect me? Will I still wear my underpants on the outside?

The reasoning behind the Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme delay is claimed to be from the lack of agreement at an international level and backflip from the federal opposition and the Greens regarding the scheme.

The delay is an interesting move by Mr Rudd considering most of Australia agrees the government should be taking a global stance on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

A recent poll by the Lowy Institute showed nearly three quarters of Australians agreed our country should take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions before a global agreement is reached.

Interestingly, one-third was not prepared to pay anything extra on their electricity bill.

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will be introduced in some form in the future. As Thomas Edison said, “just because something doesn’t do what you planned it to do in the first place doesn’t mean it’s useless”.

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme designed by the government uses a cap and trade principle for carbon. This

places an upper limit on the amount of Australia’s carbon pollution, which transfers the risk from the environment to the economy. For too long the environment has been at risk from the economy by not placing the true cost of pollution to the environment.

One bonus to electricity consumers is that the expected electricity price increases of about 40 to 50 per cent will be delayed, allowing more time to save for solar panels.

You need to start planning now for a time when huddling

around the heater could almost literally burn holes in your pockets. The cost of power is set to skyrocket — its as certain as politicians breaking promises.