HEAVY industry has seized on the weak outcome from the Copenhagen climate change summit to put pressure on the Rudd government to scale back its unconditional pledge to cut emissions by 5 per cent by 2020.
The Australian Financial Review reports the government has until the end of this month to complete negotiations with other nations on Australia's greenhouse target.
The chief executive of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, Michael Hitchens (whose organisation represents large polluters like Rio Tinto, Xstrata Coal and BlueScope Steel) said analyses by Treasury and consultancy Access Economics had concluded that Australia would incur much greater per capita economic costs under a 5 per cent cut than the United States and the European Union would under their greenhouse pledges.
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