Julia Gillard is the third Prime Minister to try to price carbon emissions.  She has re-enlisted Labor's original climate change guru, economist Ross Garnaut, to help map out the path for introducing a price on carbon emissions.

The Prime Minister unveiled the make-up of the climate change committee she agreed to set up as part of the Greens demands to retain power.

The committee will be chaired by Ms Gillard and includes Treasurer Wayne Swan, Greens leader Bob Brown and independent Tony Windsor. No one from the coalition is on the committee but Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said Tony Abbott would be invited to nominate two members.

Ms Gillard said all the members of the committee believed climate change was 'real'.  She said the committee would seek to build a consensus among committee members and the wider public on the best way to price greenhouse gases in a bid to lower emissions.

"Parliamentary members of the committee will be drawn from those who are committed to tackling climate change and who acknowledge that effectively reducing carbon pollution by 2020 will require a carbon price," she said.

Committee members will look at a raft of measures for introducing a carbon price, including revisiting an Emissions Trading Scheme, a carbon tax, a hybrid of both, and economy-wide and sector-based approaches.

A public forum of experts is planned to be held at Parliament House on the economic, environmental and social impacts of climate change.  The committee will meet monthly until the end of 2011, when consideration will be given to winding it up. 

Four independent experts - Professor Garnaut, Professor Will Steffen, Rod Sims and Patricia Faulkner will support the committee as expert advisers.
Back in 2007 when Keven Rudd was Labor leader he promised to have Prof Garnaut prepare a report into the economic impact of climate change.  That report was to include preparing a blueprint for an emissions trading scheme.

Prof Garnaut delivered but had his work dismissed by former climate change minister Penny Wong as just one "input" into the ETS debate.

Prof Steffan is a leading climate change scientist based at the Australian National University, while Ms Faulkner works in the welfare sector and will advise on the impact of climate change policies on the disadvantaged.
Mr Sims is a former bureaucrat but now works as a corporate advisor, including assisting the Business Council of Australia on ETS policy.

Editors Comments: More talk, more committees, more political gas emissions but still no action.  How long do we have to wait before someone does something?  The time for talking is way past, let's hope that Bob brown makes his presence felt and we get some early recommendations implemented.  Time is short!