Australian Greens climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, today called Martin Ferguson's draft legislation for carbon storage a clear demonstration of the many problems still bedevilling the proposed technology.

Senator Milne said, "This draft legislation perfectly demonstrates the Pandora's box of liability issues facing carbon capture and storage that can never be satisfactorily resolved.

"Aside from the tremendous remaining questions about whether the technology will even work, the liability issue may ensure that so-called 'clean coal' projects never get off the ground. Coal corporations will not commit to storing tens of millions of tonnes of CO2 unless they are guaranteed that the governments will carry their liability in perpetuity, and no one government can bind future governments to ensure that will be the case.

"You would have thought that, after Ok Tedi and so many other examples in recent years, no government would readily facilitate companies walking away from their long-term pollution liabilities. But this draft legislation, released deliberately on a Saturday to avoid scrutiny, appears to do exactly that by passing perpetual liability for carbon leakage into public hands if the Minister issues a site closing certificate.

"It is wrong to transfer the risk of worse climate change from carbon leakage onto taxpayers and future generations. Working families care about the world their children inherit and the costs that are imposed upon them.

"The minister and industry are on notice that future governments will not bound by this one. A future minister might care about the atmosphere more than the coal industry and simply refuse to sign closing certificates, ensuring that corporations continue to carry the liability.

"I fully expect the coal corporations to launch a huge lobbying effort to amend the draft to require the minister to issue a closing certificate once certain conditions have been met. That has, after all, long been the tactic of the nuclear industry around the world.

"The liability issues clearly demonstrate the folly of further developing an industry which generates an enormous and highly dangerous waste stream. Rather than spending billions on working out how to store the waste and billions more on perpetual monitoring, surely it would be better not to generate the waste at all and move to truly clean alternatives.

"A myriad of renewable energy technologies provide that alternative and are ready to do the job now. Every dollar we spend on coal is a missed opportunity which will further undermine Australia's competitive advantage. Ministers Ferguson, Wong and Garrett are desperately trying to perpetuate the coal age when the solar century has already started.

"Martin Ferguson revealed the government's true priorities, in saying that making geosequestration work is vital to the long term sustainability of the coal industry. The Government should fund technologies that promote the long term sustainability of the planet, not the coal industry."