Australia commits to a coal-powered economy

Sep 13, 2010, 1:35 GMT

Sydney - Greg Combet assured the coal industry it had nothing to fear from his appointment as Australia's new climate change minister.

'You do not take the back of the axe to the fundamentals of the Australian economy,' Combet told The Australian newspaper Monday.

Australia, the world's biggest polluter on a per capita basis, is the biggest coal exporter and relies on coal for 90 per cent of power generation.

'I've got a responsibility to support those people's jobs,' the former union official said. 'The coal industry is a very vibrant industry with a strong future.'

Combet, in the cabinet for the first time after Julia Gillard last week won the support of independents to stay on as prime minister, echoed his leader's words that Australians are not ready to set a price on carbon.

He promised to 'look' at abatement programmes but shied away from committing to them.

'What you've got to do is look to how we can achieve, in the longer term, things like carbon capture and storage for coal-fired power stations,' Combet said.

In May, then prime minister Kevin Rudd ditched plans to introduce a carbon trading scheme that would have seen the biggest 1,000 companies trade pollution permits.

Rudd was deposed by Gillard in June. The August 21 parliamentary election ended in a hung parliament, but Gillard was able to win over enough independents for her Labor Party to stay in government.