Forgive me for brutual oversimplification - I'm certainly not an economist but given a) fossil fuels are currently the cheapest way to make automotive things go and produce power b) selling them to other people is a major industry in Australia and c)Reducing CO2 emissions will involve selling and using less of them, there isn't a free way to tackle the issue of climate change that won't cost the mining industry and the consumer. Reduced consumption = reduced profit.
On a personal note, as an young academic, I don't see personal wealth as an important factor in my life, so I'm not 100% sympathetic to those who it is - and probably why I'm politically left leaning. I understand the financial connectivity between the ARC and taxation - but as 14 of the last 15 budgets have seen a reduction in ARC funding I really don't see how the resources industry - or the continued profit thereof impacts in any direct or resoundingly meaningful way on my employment opportunities. Public and government prioritisation of scientific research in Australia is seemingly lower than it is in most other developed and even developing countries. I've actually taken Penny Wong's advice to "seek opportunities abroad" and taken a job elsewhere using funding from the NSF.
I fully understand that with polarised national and global opinion on the issue that achieving effective mitigation of emissions is incredibly difficult. Its made all the more difficult in that the costs are not strictly speaking financially calculable and in large, will be realised socially and environmentally - which makes it nearly impossible to make up the economists of the world a balance sheet where inaction = $x(losses due to climate change), ineffective action =$x+n(cost of action) and effective action = $z(cost of action) and therefore prove that x>z or vice versa and make a purely financial decision. It's not a purely balance sheet issue.
Given the projected, permanent costs to the planet at large, in terms of environmental costs and the humanitarian costs involved in reduced resource production in a world economy where there is insufficient food to feed the current and growing population, I can't see there being a morally or economically justifiable argument for complete inaction - but I don't believe anyone who suggests they can reduce carbon emissions with no impact on industry and the consumer - it doesn't make logical sense.
