Australia's carbon-trading legislation fails

Australia's carbon-trading legislation fails
By ROHAN SULLIVAN (AP)

SYDNEY — Australia's Senate on Wednesday defeated the government's plan to implement a carbon pollution trading system to fight global warming, dashing hopes of setting an example for other nations at U.N. climate change talks next week.

The scuttled proposal would have placed Australia alongside the European Union and a handful of other places that have or are considering "cap-and-trade" systems to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and burnished Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's international reputation as a leader on the issue.

Instead, Rudd, a man who basked in a burst of applause from delegates at a U.N. conference two years ago for ending Australia's holdout status on the Kyoto Protocol, will attend the next one — in Copenhagen starting Monday — with a big setback on his hands.

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