Green groups attempt to revive ailing Australian climate policy

A coalition of environmental groups yesterday called on the Australian government to adopt a new approach to tackling carbon emissions in an attempt to break the long-standing deadlock over its proposed emissions trading legislation.

The Climate Institute, the World Wildlife Fund and the Australian Council of Social Services have all previously supported the government's efforts to pass a climate change bill that would establish a nationwide emissions cap-and-trade scheme.

However, the bill has been defeated on three separate occasions in the Australian Senate, and as a result the groups yesterday urged the Labor government to pursue a new approach proposed by the country's Green Party that would see a new carbon tax imposed.

The proposal would see greenhouse gas emissions taxed at a flat rate of A$23 (£13.90) a tonne for two years. Much of the money raised would be used to compensate households and some industries adversely effected by the tax.

In a letter to prime minister Kevin Rudd, the coalition – which also includes the Australia Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace and the Victorian National Tertiary Education Union – urged the government to act on climate change before a scheduled election later this year.

''While separately our organisations support a range of actions, we all support, at the least, an immediate two-year levy on carbon pollution from Australia's biggest emitters,'' the letter read.

The proposal would not place a cap on emissions and critics have argued the tax would not be sufficient to deter polluters.

But the coalition of leading green groups appears to have accepted that Liberal Party opposition to climate change policy means stronger measures will not pass a vote in the Australian senate.

The government failed three times to pass legislation that would introduce an emissions trading scheme last year and Rudd, who had previously made tackling climate change a part of his policy agenda, now faces waning support for his cap-and-trade measures.

Rudd must fight an election later this year against new Liberal leader Tony Abbott, who has risen to prominence through repeated criticism of the government's emission trading proposals and is on record as expressing scepticism over the extent to which mankind is driving climate change.

Energy-intensive industries such as bauxite and uranium mining contribute heavily to Australia's economy and the Rudd government has also faced opposition to his plans from the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, as well as rural voters who are often dependent on low fuel prices and carbon-intensive industries.

According to a poll in an Australian newspaper last month, support for the measures contained in the bill have fallen to 57 per cent from 67 per cent late last year.

Rudd appears to have bowed to the pressure and it seems increasingly unlikely that a further vote on the cap-and-trade bill will be sought before the election this autumn.