Sydney: "Worldwide system to put a price on harmful gas emissions shouldbe a key part of any plan to combat global warming, but should not come at Australia's expense," Prime Minister John Howard has said.

"Market mechanisms, including carbon pricing, will be integral to anylong-term response to climate change," said Howard during his weekly radioaddress on yesterday (Feb 4, 2007).

"But the prime minister, whose government has refused to adopt the KyotoProtocol on greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide which are believedresponsible for global warming," said Australian industry had to beprotected.

"All of my government s many initiatives to tackle global warming and itssymptoms are sensitive to the nature of our industries, our major power sourcesand our natural abundance of fossil fuels," he said.

"We are not going to sell out the many thousands of workers in the miningand power generation industries by hastily agreeing to proposals that unfairlydisadvantage Australians," he said.

Howard said while climate change was undeniable, knee-jerk reactions that harmthe national interest were not the answer.

But he said part of the solution would be a global carbon trading system.

Under such a system, companies wishing to exceed limits on their carbon dioxideemissions could buy the right to do so from firms with lower outputs.

Howard said a joint business and government taskforce was working to design anemissions trading system.

Climate change has become a major issue ahead of national elections later thisyear, with Howard and opposition Labor leader Kevin Rudd announcing plans toprobe the country s water shortages and global warming, respectively.

Separately, the Western Australian Government is considering imposing a carbontax on the state s alumina industry.

Western Australia,which is booming thanks to worldwide demand for its mining resources, is theworld s largest supplier of alumina.

The Government is considering placing a tax of up to 25 dollars a tonne onalumina, a move which would cost the industry some 200 million dollarsannually, The Australian newspaper reported today (Feb 5, 2007).
<!--[endif]-->