Last week, in a dramatic turn of even, the Australian Senate decisively rejected cap-and- trade. In the process, the Leader of Australia's conservative opposition, who has previously supported cap-and-trade was deposed.

This op-ed by Americans for Tax Reform in Investors Business Daily summerizes the weeks events, and the lessons for the U.S.

An extract:

First, the tide of international opinion has swung sharply away from the climate-change alarmists. What happened in Australia is just the beginning. Next week, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen — once billed as Kyoto 2 — will end in miserable failure: Even its most ardent supporters now admit that nothing will be achieved. More and more countries will refuse to sign on to this scam. Australia is simply the first domino to fall; we have reached the international tipping point.

Second, this is a clear lesson to Republican legislators. This is an issue that will mobilize Americans like nothing else. No longer are taxpayers going to be dictated to by the elites. The tea parties, which mobilized over a million taxpayers to march in support of smaller government earlier this year, are merely the beginning. Republican legislators such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who preach "bipartisanship" must realize that their actions have consequences. If you are elected as a conservative, you are expected to vote as such. Like their Australian counterparts, the American people will stand up and take action against those who betray them. Because as Malcolm Turnbull has learned, if you vote to send millions of people to the unemployment line, you might just find that the very first job gone will be your own.

Read the whole thing here.