Going green at the grassroots

That's nothing new. The world has been quibbling over these questions since the Kyoto Protocol was intorduced in 1997.

What of Malaysia: what ought government, industry and people do about it?

One thing that should be said first about Australians. A poll taken after the government presented its "green paper" response to the Garnaut report shows Australians backing the government doing something to reduce carbon pollution.

An Age/Nielsen Poll shows that 54 per cent of Australians are satisfied with the leadership of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on this issue.

Sixty-eight per cent are prepared, if they have to, to pay more for goods and services to help cut back on the emission of greenhouse gases. Seventy-seven per cent say Australia should do what it has to do, regardless of what other countries do.

So what might Malaysians do?

At the level of government, Rudd and counterpart Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi would have found comfort in each other's company when Rudd stopped over in Kuala Lumpur on his way home after attending the Group of Eight Outreach Meeting in Hokkaido last month.

These two middle-power nations have a role to bridge between the position of rich nations who insist developing (and heavily polluting) China and India (and others) have to do their bit, and the developing nations who demand their right to work towards parity with the rich.

Beyond the diplomatic niceties, Kuala Lumpur could show developing nations what they might do in committing to action (however tentative) in the way some people see Rudd doing: driving Australians to lead the rich by example through the adoption of a carbon emissions trading scheme.

Deforestation accounts for 20 per cent of global emissions. It's a bigger culprit than transport.

Kuala Lumpur could keep a closer eye on logging - and practices of the forest industry - within Malaysia's borders, and corporate exploitation of Malaysia's neighbours such as Papua New Guinea.

Grand climate change schemes take time. While the schemes take shape, people can "think global, act local".