Try this quick quiz, eco-warriors. What is the single most important decision the Rudd Government has made to influence the amount of carbon dioxide going into the air?
Was it signing the Kyoto Protocol? Delaying the implementation of the emissions trading scheme? Funding of renewable energy projects and clean coal technology? Or developing the carbon pollution reduction scheme?
The answer is none of the above.
The most significant decision the Government has made was to ban uranium exports to India.
One big problem for the further development of India's nuclear power industry is access to uranium at market rates. Because of its economic boom, India is gearing up to build coal-fired power stations to help meet the demand for electricity. Its coal-fired power capacity is expected to treble in the next 11 years, increasing its carbon emissions by 955 million tonnes a year - nearly double Australia's annual emissions from all sources.
The reality of this is already biting, with Indians reportedly touring the country looking at Australian coal. Instead of giving them the coal, Australia could offer to replace India's coal needs with uranium.
But there should be two main provisos. First, it must demonstrate that the uranium serves as a genuine replacement for planned coal usage. And Australia should be free to negotiate to have the saved carbon dioxide provided to it as carbon credits.
If only a quarter of India's expected increased carbon dioxide output from coal power stations could be saved with nuclear power, and Australia received that in carbon credits, by 2020 this would amount to almost 240 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
This would be a cut of about 42 per cent in Australia's nominal carbon emissions, slightly more than the Greens have asked for and never what they would expect to achieve.
These figures are not outlandish. Australia exports 10,000 tonnes of uranium a year, saving 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions compared with those generated by coal-fired power. If it can be negotiated to have uranium exports tied to carbon credits, a rise of Australian uranium exports by 70 per cent - big but not unachievable - would meet this 42 per cent reduction target.
Although environmental groups argue against including nuclear power in carbon credit schemes, there is a framework for this - the clean development mechanism - the transformation of energy systems in poorer countries that allows richer countries to offset their emissions.
Typically, this has meant cleaning up factories in China, capturing methane from landfill in India, and distributing energy-efficient light bulbs in Africa.
India is one of the few countries with the resources and stable democratic political system where such a mechanism could be confidently applied to nuclear power.
But surely environmental opposition to such a scheme would be overwhelming? Not at all. The scientist Tim Flannery has lobbied to export uranium to India and has described Australia's refusal to sell uranium to India as immoral.
Of course, there would be opposition from those who believe the debate is not really about carbon dioxide emissions but about wearing hair-shirts. But surveys increasingly show that Australians are warming to the potential benefits of nuclear energy.
What about the safety of Indians? A much more serious problem for them is deaths from pollution because of a lack of electricity. It is estimated that many thousands of Indians die from inhaling smoke from wood and dung fires used to cook. The bigger picture is that this contributes to a huge pollution haze - the Asian Brown Cloud. Some scientists say this cloud may exacerbate global warming.
As for nuclear proliferation, if it's no biggie for the US, which has a nuclear co-operation deal with India, why is it for us?
Meanwhile, some Aboriginal tribes have lobbied for years to have uranium mining bans lifted. Royalties from mining would help improve the plight of their people.
Whether Australia can get carbon credits in the process, exporting uranium is the single most important thing it could do to cut the world's carbon dioxide emissions.
