Abbott calls for five per cent CO2 cut

22 Dec 2009, 1:34 pm   -   Source: AAP
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Opposition leader Tony Abbott has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to ask him to conduct new modelling on the impact of a go-it-alone emissions trading scheme in Australia. (AAP)

Opposition leader Tony Abbott has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to ask him to conduct new modelling on the impact of a go-it-alone emissions trading scheme in Australia. (AAP)

Australia should target a carbon cut of only five per cent following the international failure to agree on emission limits, the federal opposition says.

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Australia should target a carbon cut of only five per cent following the international failure to agree on emission limits at the Copenhagen talks, the federal opposition says.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott has written to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to ask him to conduct new modelling on the impact of a go-it-alone emissions trading scheme in Australia, in the wake of the weak outcome at the Copenhagen summit.

He then wants a national debate on the issue.

"All of the previous modelling, much of which is 15 months out of date anyway, was based on the assumption that other countries would have an emissions trading scheme or something like it," Mr Abbott told reporters in the NSW Blue Mountains on Tuesday.

"After Copenhagen, we know that this is not the case. New modelling needs to be done to show what the effect of a go-it-alone emissions trading scheme would have on Australian industries and on Australian jobs."

Australia has committed to reporting its 2020 emissions target by February 1 under a agreement signed in Copenhagen.

The target reduction will be in the range of 5 per cent to 25 per cent from 2000 levels and be guided by the actions of other countries.

Mr Abbott says a five per cent reduction in carbon emissions is adequate.

"I think that we should go for the five per cent and we should only go higher than that if there are clear, binding, enforceable, transparent commitments from other countries.

"In the wake of Copenhagen we certainly can't be confident that we've got that," he said.

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