Australia govt sets Oct deadline for carbon deal

| Sourced From |

CANBERRA, Sept 23 (Reuters) – The Australian government has set a month-long timetable for resolving a political deadlock over its plan to cut carbon emissions, raising the risk of a snap election if its deadline is missed, newspapers said on Wednesday.

The government, in a letter to its conservative rivals, has given the opposition 28 days to come up with compromise proposals on the plan, which has already been defeated once in parliament and faces a second and decisive vote in November.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong wrote to opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, giving the conservatives until Oct. 19 to finalise amendments to the scheme, warning time was running out.

“It is difficult to see how the opposition could enter into a good-faith negotiation with the government if the time frame outlined in this letter is not met,” Wong wrote, according to the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.
The centre-left government will reintroduce its emissions legislation after Nov. 16. If blocked by the Senate a second time, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would have a constitution trigger to call early elections in both houses of parliament.
Wong did not refer to an election in her letter.

Regular elections are due in late 2010 and surveys show Rudd well ahead in opinion polls.
Political analysts were divided over whether the letter meant the government was open to negotiating changes to its scheme to force 1,000 of the countries largest companies to buy permits to pollute, or whether she was only pressuring Turnbull to buckle.

Wong said in the letter she wanted any opposition amendments presented “immediately” after Parliament resumed on October 19 so the government had time to consider them before November. The scheme targets emissions cuts of 5-25 percent by 2020.
“The legislation has been available in its final form for more than three months and the policy process has been under way for over 18 months. I would therefore expect the four weeks between now and October 19 to be ample time,” she wrote.
Turnbull, speaking to journalists in London, said Wong’s letter was a “stunt” and the conservatives would keep their plan to finalise amendments for consideration by the party room when parliament resumed before negotiating with the government.
“We are ready for any election at any time,” Turnbull said. “The real issue is whether Mr Rudd wants to get his emission trading scheme right or whether he wants to put thousands of Australian jobs at risk by rushing it.”

Australia’s parliament in mid-August rejected a plan for one of the world’s broadest emissions trade regimes, with conservative lawmakers holding the largest block of Senate votes joining with Greens and independents to defeat scheme.
The government wants the scheme passed before a December U.N. meeting in Copenhagen, where world nations will try to hammer out a broad global climate pact and where Canberra is eager to take a leading role.

Tagged as: Carbon Emission, Carbon Footprint, carbon target

Posted on September 25, 2009 · in Australasia