Clean electricity key to greenhouse cuts: Australia

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The world's electricity must be generated from zero or near zero-emission power plants by 2050 if a 50 percent cut in global greenhouse gas emissions is to be achieved by mid-century, Australia's Environment Minister said on Wednesday.

Australia, a long-standing critic of the Kyoto Protocol and heavily reliant on traditional coal-fired power, says clean-coal technology, most notably carbon sequestration or burying carbon underground, is the key to achieving such a goal.

"The fundamental reality is by 2050 all or almost all of the power stations in the world will have to be zero or near zero emissions," Malcolm Turnbull told Reuters in an interview.

"You cannot get to those big cuts in emissions without doing that," said Turnbull, ahead of the APEC leaders' meeting in Sydney in September where climate change will be high on the agenda.

"Now that is a huge technological leap and it is going to require both the technology being feasible and economic...and simple enough to be deployed universally," he said.

Environmental critics such as Australia's Greens party say clean-coal technology such as carbon sequestration will not make deep cuts in emissions in the necessary time frame.

Turnbull agreed such technology was still in its infancy, but added Australia was leading the world in developing clean coal, and hoped it could be "retro-fitted" to existing power stations.

"The deployment of clean-coal technology...is something we expect to be able to achieve within 15 years," he said.