"Well, at least the Parliamentary break will be a lovely chance to spend some quality time with my money." Photo: Andrew Meares

The full report is 116 pages long, but if that's all TL;DR for you the Summary for Policymakers contains helpful sentences like "Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre-industrial era, driven largely by economic and population growth, and are now higher than ever" and "It is very likely that the number of cold days and nights has decreased and the number of warm days and nights has increased on the global scale. It is likely that the frequency of heat waves has increased in large parts of Europe, Asia and Australia," and also "Climate change will amplify existing risks and create new risks for natural and human systems."

Lest you think it's all good news, it also adds that "There are multiple mitigation pathways that are likely to limit warming to below 2 degrees C relative to pre-industrial levels. These pathways would require substantial emissions reductions over the next few decades and near zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived GHGs [greenhouse gases] by the end of the century."

You might notice what it doesn't say: that a 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020 oughtta do the trick, assuming that bribing polluters was actually designed to do achieve that pitiful goal.

It's just nice to see Greg talking to people

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However, your "Environment" Minister Greg "Mum! I got in the paper!" Hunt is still feeling bullish about the passing of Direct Action, aka the $2.55 billion Mining'n'Energy Sector Election Campaign Investment Dividend.

"What we have to focus on is reducing emissions and the best thing that we can do is clean up existing power stations," he insisted today, ignoring the several dozen far better things that could be done.

He's insisting that Direct Action will hit their target within the budget and timeframe, despite there being no penalties for non-compliance or for businesses just taking the money and doing nothing at all. It's not a position that anyone not in the government claims to believe, and not one that any adult actually legitimately thinks is true, obviously.

Which is hardly a fair statement, really. Who could forget that deleted scene from Fantasia where Donald, Minnie and Goofy set up an international market-based carbon pricing system?

Just in case you're still feeling optimistic about things, let Bowie sing you a little number about imminent global destruction. He's not as far off the mark as you'd like, you know.

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Billionaire mining magnate possibly not representing the voice of the people

The aforementioned leader of a mining company has also been the big loser in the new Fairfax political poll, which has seen the Coalition, Labor (who have a slim hold on the two-party preferred vote) and the Greens gain ground at the expense of Palmer United.

It's hard to imagine why that would be: after all, leader and mining magnate Clive Palmer's been consistent in publicly declaring that he'll stand up to the government and then heroically capitulating and voting in whatever they want, from reducing consumer protection for financial planning fraud to the passing of Direct Action with zero chance of an Emissions Trading Scheme.

It seems deeply unjust too, since that same willingness to unambiguously promise one thing and then completely ignore that promise is what leadership is all about: hell, it's done wonders for Tony Abbott!

First up is the deregulation of university fees, where Education Minister Christopher Pyne's natural wit, charm and charisma has for some reason failed to convince anyone that condemning students to a lifetime of crippling and entirely avoidable debt is character building.

To be fair, it's also a genuinely terrible plan. In fact, even the laissez faire United States is sheepishly accepting that maybe letting the profit motive guide education policy has horrendous, nation-crippling outcomes and starting to enact legislation to address it.

Another big issue is the proposed increase in GST to fund the States - a hard sell for a government whose mantra is that taxes are bad and already too high, even if they hadn't also promised never to touch the GST (which they did) and/or if raising the GST was a legitimately good idea (which it ain't, unless you're wealthy).

The Coalition all appear to be lukewarm-to-negative on the plan, with five Coalition senators already saying they'll vote against it. Outside of the party room the polls suggest that it's predictably popular among reproductive-age folks and deeply unpopular with all other demographics.

So, we have a terrible plan that everyone hates, a terrible plan that nobody wants, and a possibly quite decent plan that has zero support within or without the government. Hey Parliament, these last couple of sitting weeks are going to be a blast!

The cocktail hour: what species will we kill next?

As a living tribute to this government and their commitment to doing nothing about global warming, this week we're working our way through some of the highlights of the list compiled by the Australian Museum as being the most likely next species made extinct through climate change.