The leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott, does not understand the Climate Change issue at all. Apart from his ridiculous believe that the global is not warming but cooling, his so-called alternative climate change policy will not be recognized by either the current global treaty, or any future treaties, because if he want to play the soil carbon card, he will have to include the agriculture emission in the future negotiation with other countries on carbon dioxide reduction target, which no country would want to do, unless Tony Abbott would want Australia not to join any global action on climate change.
 
Besides, soil carbon is still a new technology that no evidence can guarantee its safety on any type of soil at this stage, nor do scientists themselves believe that the biochar would have no side-effect on the environment. Some scientists have already admitted that biochar can only buy some time for a better global solution to come out instead of being the ultimated solution for climate change. Thus, if Tony Abbott want to play soil carbon, it may work for the short-term, but its long-term credibility will be in serious doubt.
 
His incentive-based system on preventing big polluters from emitting more will not work as well, because the tendency is to reduce carbon dioxide emission than hold it on a certain level. He claims that his system is not rely on penalties to stop pollution, but when he was asked by the 7.30 Report on how to stop big polluters from building more coal-fire stations, he could only answer penalties - and this is another reason his climate change policy won't work for the long-term.
 
If the government's policy is to take away a certain amount of money from the present and to give back that amount of benefit in the future, then the opposition's policy is to give some attractive amount of benefit in the present but at the cost of an unknown amount of loss in the future, which is quite sad to see.