Reuters: Australia’s controversial carbon emissions trading laws passed their first parliamentary hurdle on Thursday but the government still faces a near-impossible task to win approval for the scheme in the upper house Senate. The scheme aims to cover 75 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions from 1,000 of the biggest polluters from June 2011, with companies needing a permit for every ton of carbon pollution they produce. Center-left Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants parliament to …