I have been following the US and Australian political debates over emissions trading with interest. I agree wholeheartedly that we need to reduce emissions and creating a tradeable certificate for releasing C02 is an efficient way to do this. But do these political debates and the UN process culminating at Copenhagen really matter to wind power and Windlab?

I think the answer in the short term is 'no'. These debates are not really about whether we should GROW clean energy industries like windpower  but rather about whether we should LIMIT established polluting fossil fuel operations. As a result we see all over the world active and growing programs to expand renewables which are quite distinct and seperate from the attempts to price emissions. In the near term, governments around the world are pumping an estimated $500 billion into the renewables sectors over the next 2 years as part of stimulus packages. In Windlab's current markets of the US, Canada, Australia and South Africa I am comfortable that viable markets exist for our projects even if establishing an effective, broad based emissions trading scheme takes longer than we hoped.

Over the long term emissions trading becomes more important. Firstly it is required to properly support our expansion into poorer nations. With the exception of power-starved South Africa, locally based renewable support schemes are not likely to be introduced in poorer nations. In such countries carbon credit purchases from richer nations is already an important factor in promoting wind power - and will be increasingly so as effectively operating and efficient  global market seeks out low-cost ways of reducing emissions.  However, it should be noted that to achieve this outcome any Australian scheme must be compatible with the rest of the world.  Secondly, any sober assessment of the challenge we face would conclude that a much more radical reorganisation of our energy systems is demanded and only a global  carbon price will work. Even the fossil-focussed IEA recently called for a carbon price of $50 per tonne by 2020 and $110 by 2030. Wind is the cheapest and fastest deployed clean source and at these prices we will be installing a lot of wind farms!