Climate change and emiissions trading sceptics have been urged to "get out of the way" by Greg Combet, who told an international gathering yesterday that the dragging Australian political debate is risking the nation's international competitiveness.
"Whether people believe in climate change is real or not, they cannot allow Australia to become irrelevant as the global economy and our competitors move to a low pollution future," Mr Combet, the Minister Assisting the Minister for Climate Change, told the CarbonExpo 2009 conference on the Gold Coast.
"Senator Barnaby Joyce I think is being grossly irresponsible in a lot of the commentary he has engaged in.
"It’s time for the sceptics … if they don’t want to be part of it, to just get out of the way and allow this major reform to be properly formulated through a good-faith negotiation."
Earlier in his speech, Mr Combet was positive about the "good faith" negotiation now underway between the government and opposition Climate Change spokesman Ian Macfarlane, although he would not be drawn on possible outcomes like agriculture’s exclusion from the CPRS.
Given a policy framework that encourages innovation and investment in "clean technology, low-carbon services and adaptive know-how" Australia could become a centre of global excellence in low-carbon technologies, Mr Combet said.
"That's why I think it's negligent for those who don't believe in climate change to use the cost of acting as an excuse to delay acting," he said.
"Those who oppose this course of action are bogging Australia down in a debate that leaves us behind and risks our potential to take advantage of new the opportunities that can lock in our prosperity for the future."
Senator Joyce responded that Mr Combet "has a very myopic and naive view of economics if he believes that a new overhead is anything more than a mechanism to destroy an economy, rather than lead an economy".
He mocked the government's ambition to be a global leader in emissions legislation.
"Does Mr Rudd believe that in the middle of the night, Barack Obama rolls over and taps Michelle on the shoulder and says, 'I just can't sleep because of Kevin's position on global warming'?"
If Australia wants carbon abatement, Senator Joyce said, rather than a "massive tax" the government should be considering Nationals-supported initiatives like nuclear power, shifting transport from road to rail, biofuels policy and zonal taxation.
However, few of the 700 delegates from 20 countries at CarbonExpo, an Asia-Pacific gathering on the business of emissions trading, will share Senator Joyce’s view.
The most-aired view was a mix of frustration that the legislative environment for domestic emissions trading is still not settled, and hope that it all will be clear in November; bearing out Mr Combet's contention that all that nation's major business groups "want to see the job done".
"Business leaders are clear and unequivocal in saying, for heavens sake, we know this reform is coming, let's get it setled so we can get on with business," Mr Combet said.
"There's a lot of investment waiting to be made in various parts of the economy, notably the energy sector, and they need to know the rules."
Various speakers pointed to signs that other nations are already well ahead of Australia in implementing low-emissions policy and solutions—including China.
John Marlow of Macquarie Bank said one large government-owned Chinese energy company is investing the equivalent of eight per cent of Australia’s GDP in clean energy intiatives.
"The money is there for mitigating work, and the transformation of the energy sector in China is absolutely vast. These guys aren’t waiting for what the rest of the world does, or taking a subordinate role … they are very much on the front foot," he said.
Philippe Chauvancy of French company BlueNext said that in recent years China has put in as much wind power as Germany has installed over the past two decades.
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