Australia edges closer to carbon-trading scheme

SYDNEY - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd could get his wish and have legislation for a national carbon-trading scheme through Parliament before he attends next month’s climate conference in Copenhagen.

Rudd’s Labour government Tuesday sealed a deal with the conservative coalition it beat at the last election that should see rules for a European-style cap-and-trade scheme on the books before the end of the week.

Ian Macfarlane, chief negotiator for the Liberal-led coalition, said he had clinched five weeks of intense bargaining after the government had met a demand for increased compensation for electricity generators and other big polluters.

“I think we’ve got a very good package,” he told reporters before going into a Parliament House meeting to seek the support of his parliamentary colleagues. “There’s a mood of anticipation, and obviously there’ll be a tension in the air.”

Climate change sceptics within the Liberal-led coalition have pledged to again vote against the draft legislation - a bill was rejected earlier this year - or even to try to unseat their leader, Malcolm Turnbull, if the compromise deal looks set to be accepted.

“I simply am not prepared to support these bills, and I won’t, regardless of what my party might decide,” rebel Liberal parliamentarian Alan Ferguson said.

Ferguson and up to 20 climate-change doubters could vote against their own party when the bill comes before the upper house of Parliament, the Senate, later this week.

It has already passed the lower house, where Rudd’s Labour has a majority. With Turnbull only needing seven of his coalition senators to vote with the government, the bill is expected to pass into law.

Passage would be a win for both Rudd and Turnbull - the former having said it would be essential to take a blueprint to Copenhagen for action on reducing carbon emissions, and the latter warning colleagues he would stand aside if climate-change sceptics won the day and draft legislation was again knocked back.

More than 200 protestors rallied outside Parliament to put pressure on those inside who are deciding whether Australia will join other countries with carbon-trading schemes in place.

“The deal we put to the Opposition is a deal for this week,” Rudd warned Turnbull. “The reason for that, is the clock is ticking.”

Australia, the world’s largest exporter of coal, is also among the biggest per capita polluters. It has an average output of 20.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide per person per year, compared with 19.7 tonnes for the US, 4.5 tonnes for China and just 1.1 tonnes for India.

Rudd’s emissions trading scheme would start in July 2011 and set a starting price on carbon at 10 Australian dollars ($9 US) a ton - a price tag that effectively delays the creation of a carbon market by another year.

He is relying on the scheme to help him deliver on his promise of a unilateral five percent emissions reduction target on 2000 levels by 2020.

Rudd has promised to go as high as 25 percent if there were matching commitments at the Copenhagen meeting.

Mark Diesendorf of the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New South Wales said the offer of a 25 percent reduction was a charade because “it’s a reduction that would occur under circumstances that would probably never occur.”