Australian Parliament rejects carbon trade plan

AUSTRALIA: Australia’s parliament rejected a plan for the world’s most ambitious emissions trade regime as expected on Thursday, bringing the nation closer to a snap election and prolonging financial uncertainty for major emitters.

Conservative lawmakers holding the largest block of votes in the Senate joined with Green and independent Senators to defeat the government’s plans for a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme set to start in July, 2011.

But the government renewed its pledge to push through the scheme before a U.N. meeting at year’s end in Copenhagen where world nations will try to hammer out broader global climate pact. Canberra is eager to position itself as a climate leader, not a laggard.

“This bill may be going down today, but this is not the end,” Climate Change Minister Penny Wong told the Senate in a veiled pointer to a possible snap poll.

“We will bring this bill back before the end of the year because if we don’t this nation goes to Copenhagen with no means to deliver our targets,” Wong said before the vote. For possible scenarios, click If the Senate blocks or rejects the legislation a second time, after an interval of three months, it will hand Prime Minister Kevin Rudd a trigger for an early election. Rudd remains well ahead in opinion surveys.

With polls showing most Australians favour action to combat climate warming, Rudd’s Labor has promised emissions cuts of 5-25 percent on 2000 levels by 2020, with the higher end dependent on a global agreement at the Copenhagen talks to replace the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol. Canberra, Thursday, Reuters