Howard, not conservationists, 'biggest threat to coal miners'

By Jane Cowan
Posted 22 minutes ago

The CFMEU says the Government needs to invest more in clean goal technology and renewables. (File photo) (AAP)
Audio: Miners and greenies join forces on climate change (AM)
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) have joined forces to pressure the major parties for a tougher stance on climate change.
The unconventional alliance threatens to blow a hole in Prime Minister John Howard's rationale that bigger cuts to greenhouse gas emissions would put coal miners out of work.
Mr Howard has said he will not do anything in the name of climate change that hurts the jobs of Australian coal miners.
But CFMEU national president Tony Maher says it is not the environment that is threatening miners' livelihoods.
"John Howard's the biggest threat to coal miners' jobs I've ever seen," he said.
"That decade of inaction means that we're a decade behind where we need to be in terms of clean coal technology."
The ACF and the CFMEU want both the Government and the Opposition to set science-based legislative targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and to substantially increase the existing mandatory renewable energy target.
The alliance also wants Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol before the end of the year.
Mr Maher says climate change needs more consensus and less conflict.
He says while some environmentalists might oppose all mining outright, that kind of argument is really on the fringes of the modern debate.
"The mainstream debate is about how we go forward, how we have a low emissions future, and we need more renewables, we need a lot more investment in low emission coal technology," he said.
"I think there's an emerging consensus amongst stakeholders. I think even business is starting to come on board in a pretty serious way."
Mr Maher says what is missing is leadership on the part of the Government.
"Our members support our policy of going for a low emissions future and we're not afraid of it, so the Government has let us down and we'll forge ahead anyway," he said.
ACF executive director Don Henry agrees.
"We've both realised if you're a worker or an environmentalist or for that matter even a businessman, it's in all of our interests that we get cracking on climate change because none of us want to hand on a dangerous climate to our kids, and there's also job opportunities in cleaning up our economy," he said.
Mr Henry says the alliance puts paid to the argument that tackling climate change puts mining jobs at risk.
"I don't think tackling climate change is a debate about jobs versus the environment," he said.
"It's really a matter of trying to find common ground and solutions and working together for a cleaner, prosperous future rather than debates being stuck - us and them - and as a nation us not moving forward. We can't afford that."
A spokesman for federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull says the alliance is a blatant political ad on the part of a union.