Hi Pear, to be frank, in some high end manufacturing sectors (steel, aluminium etc) the biggest cost is energy, not wages. But take your point that those manufacturing sectors that were labour intensive in the past did suffer at the hands of high wages and hence why when the tariff walls were reduced they went overseas, but the ones we have lost of late have had more to do with energy costs than labour costs.
I am well aware that Kyoto gave India and China an exemption and that is why the US didn't want to ratify it back then - they wanted a level playing field.
For services - using India - well that is a labour cost but someone selling you a Telstra service from India has nothing to do with climate change but take your point that low valued services are done overseas. BTW when you have sky rocketting housing costs in Australia how do you expect to pay the mortgage without wages growth btw? See high wages are also associated with high cost of living and to be blunt I think many on here don't see that link but that is not the point of my post by the way.
As to a few other of your comments, well China and India are building more coal fired power stations than renewable facilities so I'll just say lip service is been paid there. I agree also with @Rappa which is maybe we need to start thinking about nuclear energy if we are serious at wanting to reduce CO2 emmissions here.
BTW I don't smoke anymore so you can keep smoking those Cubans.
