“It is as disappointing to me as it is to millions of Australians that we do not have a price on carbon,” she said.
“If elected as Prime Minister I will re-prosecute the case for a carbon price at home and abroad.”
Opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt told The Australian Online today that the only option open to Ms Gillard was to adopt a form of the Coalition’s policy.
“I think we are set for the government to adopt significant elements of the Coalition’s policy, but in standard practice, to deny that they’ve done it,” he said.
He also accused Ms Gillard of engaging in a “deliberate deception”.
“On the first day she clearly indicated to the Australian people that she intended to proceed with an ETS and carbon pricing. And that was a deliberate deception and she’s been forced to back down within two weeks.”
Mr Hunt concluded that if the Prime Minister wouldn’t consider proceeding with an ETS until 2012 it would not be implemented until at least 2014.
Senator Brown has also reacted angrily to the postponement of a carbon price.
“Australians are going to be thoroughly disappointed,” he said.
“This is really a failure of action by a future Gillard government and it’s being dragged to the electorate before the election.”
A paper released yesterday at the Lowy Institute that charting an alternate path to address global climate change also appeared to be dismissed by the government yesterday.
The paper – co-authored by economist and Reserve Bank board member Professor Warwick McKibbin – recommends that the Major Economies Forum instead of the UN should move to implement a carbon price because its 17 members were responsible for 80 per cent of carbon emissions world-wide.
It would see heavy-polluting countries like Australia, the US and China agree to set a similar carbon price, to rise over time, while the UN could continue with its own efforts.
But the office of Climate Change Minister Penny Wong was dismissive of the proposal.
“Our efforts are best focused on implementing the pledges already made through the Copenhagen Accord, rather than spending valuable time re-negotiating the whole global framework for tackling climate change,” a spokeswoman told The Australian Online.