Unions work over China on climate
Matthew Warren, Environment writer | May 08, 2008
UP to $19 billion worth of planned investment in the aluminium industry and 20,000 jobs could be lost to China if the federal Government does not allocate free emission trading permits to the sector, unions have warned.
Unions have told the Government to take a "balanced approach" to impleenting emissions trading in Australia ahead of a global scheme, or put thousands of manufacturing jobs at risk.
Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes said yesterday 20,000 jobs in the energy-intensive aluminium industry alone needed to be properly protected or there was a risk the sector would be lost offshore.
Pressure from the AWU on climate change policy follows lobbying by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union for the Government to invest in developing clean coal technology to protect its members' jobs in the mining industry.
The Government's top climate policy adviser, Ross Garnaut, yesterday made his strongest endorsement yet of clean coal technology, saying its success would be crucial to prosperity for the rest of this century.
Mr Howes said up to $19 billion worth of investment in aluminium in Australia could be lost if free permits were not allocated for existing and new projects and secured far enough into the future.
Without free permits, projects would be forced to buy them, drastically increasing their costs. Mr Howes said it would not help cut global greenhouse emissions if Australian smelters were closed and their output replaced by less efficient plants in China.
"Every tonne of alumina made in Western Australia uses half the energy and produces less than half the greenhouse emissions than if it was made in China," he told a climate change conference in Sydney. "This is a critical point missed by those calling for industry to be shut down and Australian jobs offered offshore."
Like many other industries, China's aluminium sector has doubled its output in the past three years to 13 million tonnes from 80 smelters compared with six operating in Australia.
Aluminium is Australia's third-biggest commodity export behind coal and steel.


