CLIMATE action advocate Professor Ian Lowe has provided his six-point plan to the ABC's website The Lab.

This formed part of the The Road to 2050 as part of the expert solutions:

1. A domestic emissions trading scheme should be set up, structured so as not to penalise corporations that have taken early action to reduce emissions, with a price for emitted carbon high enough to stimulate action (for example $35/tonne).

2. Serious targets for electricity from renewable sources should be adopted: 20 per cent by 2020, 40 per cent by 2030 and so on, recognising that the 2050 target will require a complete transition to a basket of renewables.

3. Solar hot water systems should be installed in all new dwellings unless there are technical obstacles such as shading by nearby buildings, in which cases heat pumps or gas would be allowed.

4. Minimum fuel efficiency standards for new vehicles should be introduced, with a period of grace of five years to allow re-tooling and sale of old stock.

Minimum average fuel efficiency standards for all vehicle fleets should be introduced without delay.

5. The existing subsidies for fossil fuel use (amounting to over $5billion a year) should be phased out over a short period, for example five years.

6. The system of minimum efficiency standards should be extended to all major domestic appliances and commercial energy-using equipment, with the standards brought up to world best practice within three years.