With Environment, Elections On Horizon, Howard Meets With Coal Industry - Reuters

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CANBERRA - Australian Prime Minister John Howard will hold talks with coal producers on Wednesday to discuss ways to clean up the industry as he shifts ground on environmental issues ahead of elections in late 2007.

With climate change shaping up as a key issue for next year's elections, Howard has overturned his blanket opposition to carbon trading and has set up a task force with business to look at how Australia could be part of a global trading scheme. Business and major manufacturers welcomed the move but critics said the inquiry would be waste of time and money and was driven by politics rather than environmental concerns.

"The prime minister is putting the coal industry in charge of clean air. The aim of an emissions trading scheme is to reduce emissions, not protect the interest of polluters," Greens leader Bob Brown said on Tuesday.

Carbon trading imposes strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions and creates financial incentives for companies to become cleaner through a system of selling "carbon credits". Howard's decision to examine carbon trading came after Treasurer Peter Costello said on Sunday Australia could join a global trading system in the next decade under an updated Kyoto agreement, which is the subject of talks in Kenya this week.

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http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/38990/story.htm