Fed: This is a difficult time to start ETS: Combet

AAP General News (Australia)
04-23-2009
Fed: This is a difficult time to start ETS: Combet

CANBERRA, April 23 AAP - The global recession has made it a difficult time to start
emissions trading but Australia must press on to help fight global warming, the federal
government says.

Government MP Greg Combet, recently appointed to help Minister Penny Wong cover the
portfolio of climate change, said the global economic environment was tough for big business,
such as iron and steel producers.

"Of course it makes it a very difficult environment to introduce a reform as important
as this," Mr Combet told Sky News on Thursday.

But he said the government believed climate change was real and Australia must start
emissions trading.

"We are determined to press on."

Key business figures have strongly opposed the government's proposed Emissions Trading
Scheme, but Mr Combet, the parliamentary secretary for climate change, said the global
recession was the real problem for them.

He also said businesses told him they wanted the scheme passed to give them certainty.

Opposition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb said the scheme was "deeply flawed"

and would cost many jobs.

"It's going to cost tens of thousands of jobs, it's going to stop investment in its
tracks," he told Sky News.

Mr Combet indicated he did not think this was true.

AAP ca/jl

KEYWORD: CLIMATE COMBET

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