The Australian
The Coalition could support an emissions trading scheme after 2020 if the world goes in that direction, opposition climate change spokesman Greg Hunt has admitted.
Mr Hunt said the review of the Coalition's "direct action'' plan in 2015 would assess the global situation and decide the best way to continue greenhouse gas abatement after 2020.
"This is a scheme which will run at least until 2020 -- we will have a review in 2015, and we have said we will look at what is happening in the rest of the world,'' Mr Hunt said during a debate with Climate Change Minister Penny Wong at the National Press Club yesterday.
"If it appears the US and other countries were moving towards a global market system, we would look at that approach from 2020.''
But the electricity-generation sector, where investments are in plants that last 30 or 40 years, has expressed concern about the uncertainty the plan creates, because it is not clear whether there would be a carbon price or any penalty after 2020.
Senator Wong said complex reform was difficult, particularly without bipartisan support.
"We have always said the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is a tough reform . . . we recognise we might lose some paint along the way,'' she said.
"It is tempting to take the low road, to focus solely on managing the headlines and the media grab, rather than solving the problem.''
Mr Hunt said the debate was not about belief in climate change, or targeted emission reductions -- both Labor and the Coalition are aiming for 5 per cent cuts by 2020 -- but about the best means to achieve them.
He said his plan would start emission reductions more quickly and impose no costs on small businesses or families.
Liberal backbencher Dennis Jensen said another benefit of the plan was it could be "wound back'' if the science of climate change became less convincing.
If understanding of climate science changed, "perhaps you could spend the money environmentally elsewhere and gain even greater outcomes, because you don't have the necessity to have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions'', Mr Jensen said.
Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson said focusing on distant reduction targets might just lock in international inaction.