Coal exporters would be forced to pay a new tax to mitigate extreme weather events under a Greens election policy to be announced on Thursday.
Greens leader Christine Milne will propose a $2-a-tonne tax on coal leaving Australia.
At current export projections, the coal levy would raise $234 million next financial year and $347 million the year after.
The money would go to disaster mitigation, including the building of flood levees, permanent bushfire breaks, risk management studies and land acquisition.
In a move bound to anger the mining industry, Senator Milne will draw a direct link between climate change and what she sees as the responsibility of the minerals sector to pay for the natural disasters that result from it.
”The coal industry is driving global warming and increasing the intensity of extreme weather events that are hurting communities and costing our economy billions of dollars,” she said.
”It is time the coal industry started contributing to the cost of preparing for extreme weather and adapting to climate change.”
Floods, bushfires and cyclones have cost Australia $6.5 billion in the past three years, according to the Productivity Commission, but the federal government puts just $21 million a year into the natural disaster resilience program.
The Greens will propose putting $350 million a year into the fund by 2015-16.
”Given that the current price of thermal coal is around $US90 a tonne, a $2-a-tonne levy is clearly affordable for the industry,” Senator Milne said.
