Two weeks after Australia’s national elections produced no clear winner, the incumbent prime minister Julia Gillard said on 7 September that she had secured enough backing from other parliamentarians to form a minority government. (The Australian)

Gillard’s power-sharing negotiations have pushed climate change back up the political agenda: to win the support of the newly-resurgent Green party, she had to commit to a cross-party committee on climate change. The deal may increase support for a price on carbon emissions (The Guardian).

A market-based carbon trading scheme has been twice rejected by parliament and will not be re-considered by Gillard until 2012; the Green party favours a straight tax.