Following last week's defeat in the Senate of his proposed scheme for reducing carbon emissions, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was this week hoping at least to spur billions of dollars of renewable-energy investment.

As Nature went to press, a law requiring 20% of Australia's energy to come from renewable sources by 2020 was expected to make its way through parliament.

The energy bill was delinked from a much broader legislative package that would use a cap-and-trade scheme to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from industry (see Nature 458, 554–555; 2009). But that was voted down by opposition politicians on 12 August. Rudd intends to re-submit the contentious emissions-trading scheme to Senate for voting before the end of the year.