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Australia Offers Deal to Opposition on Carbon Trading (Update2)

 

Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) — Australia’s Labor government has delivered a deal to Opposition parties to win passage of a cap- and-trade carbon emissions trading system aimed at mitigating climate change.

“The impact of climate change will be felt here hardest and first,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said today at a news conference in Canberra. The offer was announced by Rudd and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, who said additional assistance will be provided to the electricity and coal-mining industries in order to win Opposition backing.

Rudd wants approval for the plan before almost 200 countries debate terms for a new accord to cut greenhouse-gas pollution at the United Nations meeting in Copenhagen. The Australian laws would introduce a price on carbon emissions in 2011, aimed at reducing the release into the atmosphere of gases blamed for causing global warming.

The offer follows more than a month of negotiations between the government and the Opposition, Rudd said in a prepared news release. The Opposition coalition, which includes the Liberal and National parties, must still announce whether it supports the amendments and the offer.

The amendments to the plan announced today include A$1.5 billion ($1.38 billion) in assistance to coal producers over five years, up from A$750 million previously.

Electricity, Farming

The electricity industry will receive a A$4 billion increase in assistance to adjust to the plan, while medium and large manufacturing and mining businesses get a cost assistance program of A$1.1 billion. Heavy-industry pollution emitters will also receive extra assistance.

Farming will be excluded from the carbon pollution reduction scheme under the amendments announced today.

“Obviously there is some additional assistance for industry in transition,” Rudd told reporters. “I refer particularly to the measures that are outlined there for coal, for LNG and for the electricity supply industry.”

Liquefied natural gas producers have complained that the climate change proposals place them at a disadvantage to competitors in countries that don’t impose a cost on carbon.

Australia’s carbon trading plan aims to cut the country’s emissions by 5 percent to 15 percent from their 2000 levels within 10 years.

Australia, the world’s biggest coal and iron ore exporter, ranked 15th in carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels in 2006, according to U.S. Department of Energy figures…read more at the Bloomberg

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