Australia's parliament rejected laws to set up a sweeping carbon emissions trade scheme on Wednesday, scuttling a key policy of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and setting a trigger for an early 2010 election.
Here are some facts about how the failed carbon-trade scheme would have looked.

* The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme was set to have started on 1 July, 2011. Under the scheme, about 1,000 of Australia's biggest polluting companies and operations would have had to purchase carbon permits, covering 75 percent of national emissions.

* The government committed to an unconditional emissions cut of 5 percent by 2020. The target could have been increased to 25 percent if the world agreed to a tough new climate pact to expand or replace the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol.

* The cap-and-trade scheme required polluters to buy a permit for every tonne of carbon produced. The government proposed a flat carbon price cap of A$10-a-tonne on start-up. Full auctioning and trading of permits was to have started from 2012.

* The government estimated a carbon price of A$26 a tonne in 2012-13 due to the strong Australian dollar.

* The scheme included compensation for businesses and households, with money raised from permits helping taxpayers cope with increased costs for fuel and electricity. The government had also promised to cut fuel excise to match increases under emissions trading, while welfare payments would have been increased as well.

* Additional expenditure measures would initially have cost A$1.28 billion and $7.01 billion over the period 2019-20. A lower estimated carbon price meant a reduction in assistance to households that would have totaled A$5.76 billion to 2019-20.

ASSISTANCE TO KEY SECTORS

* Some polluters exposed to overseas export competition would have received assistance in 2011-12 at 94.5 percent for high emission intensive activities, 66 percent for moderate emission intensive activities and decline at 1.3 percent per annum.

* Coal Sector: A total of A$1.5 billion in transitional assistance over five years, up from A$750 million previously.

* Voluntary Action: The government would have ensured the CPRS took into account voluntary action by households to cut emissions.

* Electricity sector: An increase of A$4 billion in assistance, increasing the total value of permits to A$7.3 billion.

* Electricity Prices: A$1.1 billion would have been allocated to assist medium and large manufacturing and mining businesses with CPRS-related rises in electricity prices in the early years.

* Agriculture: Farmers would have been exempt from the scheme, but would have been able to take part in the market for carbon offset.

* Food processing: A five-year, A$150 million assistance package would have been established within a Climate Change Action Fund.

* Cost of Living: Living costs would have risen by around 0.9 percent, although power bills would have risen by 16 percent. Gas and other household energy bills were seen up 9 percent.
* Households: Around 90 percent of low-income households would have received assistance equivalent to 120 percent or more of their cost of living increase under the scheme.

(Reporting by James Grubel and David Fogarty; Editing by Jonathan Standing)

Australia Climate change