By James Grubel
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's Greens called for a quick parliamentary vote to defeat government plans for carbon trading on Monday, a move that could make the issue a trigger for an early general election.
The carbon-trade plan is one of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's key reforms and a central plank of Australia's efforts to fight global warming, but the government is struggling to find the seven extra votes it needs in parliament's upper house Senate.
"We want to see this 'agreement to fail' rejected and get Australia moving with real action," Greens Senator Christine Milne told reporters.
Australia's left-of-center government wants to start carbon trading in July 2011, and has promised to cut greenhouse emissions by up to 25 percent on 2000 levels if global climate talks agree on deep cuts.
But the plan faces a major roadblock in the Senate. If the conservative opposition and minor parties reject the laws twice in the upper house, Rudd could call an early election.
The Greens oppose the current plan and want the government to offer deeper emissions cuts to around 40 percent of 1990 levels, saying the 25 percent maximum target should be the starting point for the climate talks in Copenhagen in December.
The opposition Liberal and National parties, who are struggling for support in opinion polls, remain deeply divided over carbon trading but are wary of giving the Labor government an excuse to call an early election.
Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull may soon announce support for the 25 percent emissions target, media reports said, but urge a delay on voting on the carbon trade laws until 2010.
That would give the Liberal and National parties more time to come up with a united position on carbon trading, and would prevent the laws from being used as an election trigger.
The next election is due in the second half of 2010 and Rudd would need the carbon-trade package rejected twice by early 2010, with a three-month interval between votes, for the scheme to qualify as an early election trigger.
The government introduced a package of nine carbon-trade bills on May 14, and wants them passed by July this year.
Milne said Turnbull's plan was designed to shore up his leadership and avoid further opposition climate policy divisions, and said the Greens were not concerned about an early election.
"There is no more important issue facing Australia, facing the planet, than climate change," she said.
Rudd, first elected to office in November 2007, has raised the possibility of an early election if the opposition parties block his agenda, although he also said he intends to run his full three-year term.
Australia's carbon trading scheme aims to be the world's broadest, covering 75 percent of emissions from 1,000 of the country's biggest polluters.
Australia, the world's biggest coal exporter, accounts for 1.5 percent of global emissions but is one of the highest per-capita emitters due to a reliance on coal for 80 percent of its electricity.
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
