Isra-Mart srl :Gillard: No rush to carbon trading

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Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said today she would not push the accelerator on emissions trading after miner BHP Billiton called for her government to move ahead with a price on carbon.

Gillard's is under subtle pressure from Greens, supporting her minority Labor government since indecisive elections last month, to curb greenhouse gas output in coal-reliant economy and lower the world's highest level of per capita emissions.

Gillard has promised multi-party talks next year to build consensus on carbon pricing after the dead-heat August 21 vote left Labor needing support from three independents and one Green member of parliament to pass laws in the lower house.

"We'll work through (it) and I'm under no illusion about the complexity. So we'll take the time it needs," she told reporters.

Gillard went to the election promising a five percent cut in 2000-level emissions by 2020, and to seek consensus for its carbon trading plan, currently shelved until at least 2013 and the end of the Kyoto global climate protocol.

But under a deal with the Greens, who will wield sole balance of power in the upper house Senate from mid-2011, Labor has promised a new committee of lawmakers and experts to work on a policy to price carbon pollution and promote renewable energy.

The Greens want the government to introduce a carbon tax as an interim step ahead of market-based carbon trading, although the government has previously ruled out a carbon tax.

BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers said yesterday it was in Australia's long-term interest to move ahead with a carbon price even in the absence of a global agreement to succeed Kyoto.

Hope for consensus

Kloppers said the company wanted a predictable and gradual transition to a carbon price, and favoured a combination of a carbon tax, land use actions and limited carbon trading.

"The decisions we take now on power production will still be with us long after a global price for carbon is finally in place," Kloppers said in a speech in Sydney.

His speech is a boost to Gillard's hopes of finding a political consensus on carbon pricing despite opposition from rival conservatives, who have promised to try and force a change of government before elections due in three years.

BHP also called for the government to return any revenue raised from carbon pricing to individuals and businesses affected by the policy, possibly through tax cuts or lump sum grants, and said the government should rebate emissions costs for products exposed to trade competition.

"We want to work through options," Gillard said in response.

"Obviously, I believe climate change is real. I believe we've got to take steps to address climate change."

Greens leader Bob Brown said Kloppers was talking common sense and BHP's view would help guide the committee in decisions on adopting either a carbon tax or cap-and-trade carbon scheme favoured by Gillard's Labor.

"It recognises that we have to move on beyond the coal-burning, carbon-polluting age that we're in," he said.