Energy experts have warned that gas alternatives favoured once a carbon tax was brought in would do almost as much damage to the environment.
Experts say the tax would have a limited effect in reducing the devastating impact of fossil fuels on the environment.
Under the proposed tax, power stations would switch to natural gas, which has only half the carbon output of coal. But once methane leaks are included, its advantage over coal is reduced, researchers have flagged.
Melbourne Energy Institute research fellow Patrick Hearps said gas looked cleaner on the surface but had its own drawbacks.
He said power plant carbon output was lower when fuelled by natural gas, but the Government wasn’t taking into account the methane that was leaked during the gas mining process.
“Decision makers need to be cautious about suggesting natural gas as a solution or even a stop-gap measure to fight climate change,” he said.
“Over a 20-year timescale, methane is more than 72 times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
“At the moment no one really knows how much methane is leaked to the atmosphere.”
Mr Hearps said gas mining needed tighter regulations on monitoring and reducing leaks.
“Australia should place a hard limit on how much leakage can be allowed. For example, it could start at ‘no more than 0.5 per cent of the methane processed is allowed to escape to atmosphere’, and reduce that percentage year-by-year,” he said.
However, the Clean Energy Council spokesman said the carbon tax was necessary to protect the environment.
CEC Policy Director Russell Marsh said a switch to gas would still be cleaner.
“You have to look at it in comparison to coal, it will reduce greenhouse gasses,” Mr Marsh said. “If you look at other countries that have lower emissions per capita than Australia, emissions trading and carbon pricing are a big part of that.”
