U.N. CEO STATES AUSTRALIA SHOULD NOT RUSH INTO MEETING GLOBAL WARMING REDUCTIONS IN 2009

 Greater greenhouse emissions reductions could be achieved much more cheaply with a radically different emissions trading scheme design, research to be delivered to the Coalition and independent senator Nick Xenophon next week shows.

The research findings, as well as comments by UN climate change head Yvo de Boer yesterday that Australia did not need to have an emissions scheme in place before the Copenhagen meeting in December, have strengthened the resolve of those within the Coalition who want to take a stand against the government's bill by insisting on far-reaching amendments or by blocking it entirely.

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull recently won shadow cabinet agreement to negotiate changes to the bill in a bid to clear from the political agenda the issue that deeply divides the Coalition.

But the government has maintained a hard line, insisting the opposition produce specific amendments before it agrees to negotiations, meaning the laws are almost certain to be defeated when first presented to the Senate on August 13.

Research from Frontier Economics, commissioned last month by the Coalition and Senator Xenophon, is understood to have come down in favour of a radically different "baseline and credit" scheme, which requires permits to be bought for a firm's additional emissions over a set level, rather than all its emissions.

"The Frontier results will clearly demonstrate that this whole exercise will benefit from the government looking much more widely at the basic design of its scheme," opposition climate change spokesman Andrew Robb said yesterday.

The government's attempts to force a rapid passage of the bill were also dealt a blow yesterday when the head of the UN climate change agency, Yvo de Boer, denied that a domestic emissions trading scheme needed to be in place before the Copenhagen meeting.

"What people care about in the international negotiations is the commitment that a government makes to take on a certain target, undertake certain action, to limit the growth of emissions; so that's what's important to the international community. The domestic policies that are put in place to then deliver on that are seen more as a domestic issue," he told ABC radio.

Mr Turnbull said Mr de Boer's comments confirmed what the Coalition had been saying all along -- that the bipartisan support already given to the government's proposed emissions target was all that was needed before the December meeting.

"The reality is what Kevin Rudd needs to take to Copenhagen is a commitment to targets and we have given him bipartisan support on the targets that he has proposed to take to Copenhagen," Mr Turnbull said.

"There is no question that the emissions trading scheme should have its design finalised after Copenhagen and we've been saying that all year."

But Senator Wong said the emissions trading scheme needed to be in place by December, because the government believed the public needed to know how the targets would be met.

The opposition's Senate leader, Nick Minchin, said yesterday the "principles" to guide negotiations with the government did not represent a decision by the shadow cabinet to eventually pass the emissions trading laws.

If the bill is defeated this month, the government will re-present it in November, in the run-up to Copenhagen. A second defeat would allow the bill to be used as a trigger for a double dissolution election.

Meanwhile, Xstrata has written to Queensland MPs warning that the emissions trading scheme threatens the "long-term viability" of the company's north Queensland copper and zinc operations and demanding amendments broadly in line with the principles proposed by the Coalition.

Xstrata has called on the government to give the highest level of proposed compensation -- 90 per cent of free permits -- to all emissions-intensive industries.

Lenore Taylor, National correspondent