Australia has a new way to set up an unstoppable doomsday machine: by starting new coal mines, and committing to pay the whole of the mines' carbon taxes in the future.

At a time when we need to reduce use of fossil fuels, to aim to make fossil fuels cheaper to use is a fundamental mistake. This is an example of setting short-term convenience over long-term survival.

The purpose of a carbon tax is to make fossil fuel more expensive to use, without making it more profitable to extract. If it had started 10 years ago, with a large enough tax rate, we might have been well on the way to decarbonizing by now. However, with time being short, it may be too slow.

We Need a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.