Does anybody understand how the ETS will work?

[Matilda]

Penny Wong has announced today that the Government will increase its compensation for the coal and electricity
industries in a bid to gain Coalition support.

I'm not trying to be a smart-arse, but how will paying billions to the biggest polluters encourage them to cut down
their emissions? I truly don't understand how this is supposed to work.

[Esra Star]

1. No I don't but....

establishing an economic connection between what we do, and the environment is a good thing.
The targets will be woeful but the principal will be in place.
This will make it easier to adjust the targets when the scientific timeframes are more focused.

[Matilda]

2. I tried Googling for information on carbon trading schemes,

and what I've found still doesn't help me understand exactly how it works, but I found lots of articles saying how
bad the idea is. Not by people who are sceptics, but by people who say it's totally unrealistic in reducing
emissions.

I've also discovered that international banks are now trading in carbon emissions, in schemes which a number of
experts liken to the kind of sub-prime schemes that brought the world economy crashing down last year.

It all leaves me with a feeling that the CPRS is just a lot of shuffling of paper and a sleight-of-hand con game
that isn't going to benefit anybody except the banks and the big polluters.