- reduced Australia's carbon emissions (not a massive deal by itself)

- built up a public repository of cash that could have been allocated to something useful, like funding the fire services

- lead by example; we will now never know if Australia's leading by example would have encouraged a wider implementation of carbon tax schemes and a reduction in carbon emissions

You are correct that it would have not by itself mitigated the natural drought cycle in Australia, however the opportunity to reduce the impact was lost - and Australia is poorer for it.

Finally, I did not suggest that a carbon tax would have stopped these fires, only that I would like to do an analysis between what the potential sum of taxes would have been versus the donation totals.

Cheers.