After Labor won the 2007 federal election and formed government, it published a Green Paper on climate change for discussion and comment.

After the 2010 federal election, the Gillard government was able to get the Carbon Pricing Mechanism passed into law as part of the Clean Energy Futures Package (CEF) in 2011, and became effective on 1 July 2012.

[12] The White Paper included the Rudd Labor government's targets for Greenhouse gas emission reductions, 5% below 2000 by 2020 on a unilateral basis or up to 15% below 2000 by 2020 if also agreed by the other major emitters.

[15] Summit participants were joined by 2,000 other people in surrounding parliament house to express dissatisfaction with the Rudd government climate change policies.

Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, the Wilderness Society and the Climate Institute were joined by the Greens and other environmentalists in calling for more ambitious 2020 targets of 25 to 45 per cent reductions.

Dr Hugh Saddler, Managing Director of Energy Strategies Pty Ltd,[20] stated "the white paper does not include measures to reduce emissions from the major non-energy sectors such as agriculture and land clearing.

"[18] Mitch Hooke, the head of the Minerals Council of Australia, said his organisation was "profoundly disappointed that the white paper was not better aligned with progress towards a global agreement on reduction commitments, new low emissions technologies and emissions trading schemes in other countries"[19] South Africa's environment minister, Marthinus Van Schalkwyk, described the scheme as an inadequate "opening bid", and warned that it is not "nearly good enough to bring developing countries to the table".

[21] Professor Ross Garnaut, previously an adviser to the Government on climate change, 'damned' the Rudd government's carbon policy because of the gross over-compensation of coal-fired electricity generators; the possibility of taking 25% emission reduction targets off the table when they are in Australia's best interest; the lack of a principled basis for support of trade-exposed industries and the potential threat to public finances of the proposed compensation to industry.

[22] Statements of support included: The United Nations climate negotiator Yvo de Boer told ABC Radio "Australia's now put a figure on the table, something countries have been calling for a long time".

[25] On 4 May 2009, the government announced a number of modifications to the proposed Scheme, including a delayed start, a deeper conditional target (25% by 2020, in the event of a global agreement aiming at 450 ppm), more assistance for industry, and a "carbon trust" to enable voluntary action by households.

[26] There were a number of significant changes made to the scheme in November 2009 after Malcolm Turnbull negotiated with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

[27] On 30 November 2009, the Senate failed to pass the CPRS,[28] giving Kevin Rudd a potential reason for calling a double dissolution election.

[29] On 27 April 2010, Prime Minister Rudd announced that the Government had decided to delay the implementation of the CPRS until after the current commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (which ended in 2012).

The Prime Minister announced that the CPRS would be introduced only when there was greater clarity on the actions of other major economies including the US, China and India.

In June 2010, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, told Sky News that he first learned of the scrapping of the CPRS when he read about it in a newspaper after it was leaked by a Government source.

[31] The delay in implementing the CPRS drew strong criticism of Rudd and the Labor Party from the Federal Opposition,[32] and from community and grassroots action groups such as GetUp.