Last week, Australia found itself officially perched at the top of the world's worst polluters league.

Dirtier than China, dirtier than all of Europe, dirtier than even the good ol' US of A. We are #1: the undisputed heavyweight polluter of the world.

Time to take a look in the mirror perhaps? Not likely.

The reaction from Mitch Hooke, Chief Executive of the Australian Minerals Council, was typical. "Even if the Australian economy was shut down," he stated on ABC, "it would only contribute to a lessening of global emissions by 2%."

In other words, 'all the other folk are doing it, let's go hell for leather!'

Unfortunately, the Rudd Government seems to concur. Instead of taking real action on emissions reduction, Kevin Rudd seems to have adopted a policy of 'shock and bore.' That is, stun people with fine sounding rhetoric, then cloak ineffective policies in layers of soul-sapping complexity.

The CPRS is a case in point. Less well known are the tactics for this December's world climate summit in Copenhagen, where the dark arts of creative accountancy are the order of the day.

Through a mixture of international offsets and changes to the arcane land use and forestry rules, known as LULUCF, Australian negotiators are aiming to conjure a 13% emissions reduction by doing nothing at all. Changes to the land-use rules laid down by Kyoto alone would account for an 8% cut.

This means that we can actually get even dirtier while looking like we are taking action. Every aspect of the Government's climate plans seems designed to unearth new ways to ensure that we can keep on polluting. No matter how far-fetched the scheme, the Rudd government will back it to the hilt.

The white elephant that is carbon capture and storage springs to mind. It is frankly bizarre that our pollution reduction plans are reliant on a technology which does not exist and is unlikely to for at least 20 years, if at all.

ABC's Four Corners last week supplied the latest in a litany of comprehensive demolition jobs on 'clean coal', yet it still remains a central plank of Australia's energy policy.

Also seated comfortably at the Mad Hatter's tea party is the policy of offsetting - the premise that increased emissions in Australia can be counterbalanced - or offset - by emissions reductions elsewhere.

This doesn't mean that if we open a coal-fired power station, somebody else has to close one. Nothing so transparent. In fact, a new coal-fired power station in Australia could also be offset by the protection of a forest in Papua New Guinea. Reducing emissions this way is far cheaper and more politically palatable.

Unfortunately it doesn't work.

The premise itself doesn't stand up to even the most cursory examination because the reduction from protecting forests isn't actually a reduction at all.

Instead, it is a projection, a figure derived by creating a 'business as usual scenario' then predicting how much carbon has been saved by avoiding this scenario.

Confused? Good. That's the idea. The less you understand, the less you can object.

But why bother with all this chicanery?

For the answer, we need to return to the realms of reality. In New South Wales, more new coal and gas-fired power stations are on the table now than at any time since the 1970s, not to mention a massive new coal plant under construction in Western Australia and more planned for Queensland and Victoria.

Under the reign of Rudd, Australia has also cemented another No.1 spot, this time as the world's largest coal exporter. Plans are afoot to double our export capacity.

At a time when the rest of the world is shifting to a low-carbon future, Australia is more addicted to coal than ever.

Since Kevin Rudd was elected in large part to deal with climate change, this puts him in a quandary. But rather than real action, his response has been to try to cheat his way out.

And the impact is far worse than 'winning' the occasional unwelcome epithet; because Australia is shooting itself in the foot both economically and environmentally.

Just to take one example, the Great Barrier Reef is being irreversibly damaged by our current climate trajectory. Not only is this a tragedy on an environmental level, the reef brings in around $5 billion every year and more than 60,000 jobs depend on its survival.

The frustrating part is that Australia has vast potential for the development of renewable energy. But renewables need real investment and genuine government backing. Urgently switching away from fossil fuels is essential for the environment and - as study after study shows - would boost the economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

But the longer we wait, the further we will fall behind the rest of the world.

Copenhagen is the big test for Kevin Rudd. His choice is simple: show some leadership and start to honestly live up to his own climate promises, or carry on doing the dirty. If he chooses the latter, we can expect to remain lodged as the world's biggest carbon polluter for many years to come.