The Business Council of Australia’s warning about the economic costs of the Rudd Government’s climate change strategy provoked a strong response yesterday from BP chairman Gerry Hueston. He said that arguments about trade-exposed industries was obscuring the need for Australia to quickly introduce an emissions trading scheme.

The industry is concerned that the Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme makes no provision for emissions from the more than $60billion of proposed new natural gas projects, putting that investment in doubt, even though gas usually replaces far dirtier fossil fuels in the countries to which it is exported.