Polluters 'panic' at last minute

SENIOR lawyers advising Australian businesses and councils on the start of the carbon tax say some are struggling to prepare, with one warning of ''last-minute panic'' a month before the scheme starts.

While the biggest polluters were well placed, small and mid-sized emitters had been slower to respond and in some cases had become aware only recently they had to pay the tax.

Partners at major law firms said those struggling to comprehend the scheme before its July 1 start included gas suppliers, the waste industry including local governments and companies that were not being charged the tax but faced an uncertain increase in costs.

Elisa de Wit, leader of Norton Rose's climate change practice, said some organisations were yet to grasp how to fairly pass on the $23 a tonne cost to consumers. ''There is last-minute panic in some cases, to be honest. There has been a lot of last-minute struggling with calculating what the price increase should be and conveying it to customers without breaching the ACCC [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission],'' she said.

Ms de Wit said senior management and boards at some companies had failed to engage in working out what carbon pricing would mean for them. But she said the government had been slow to release details of some procedural elements of the scheme and the opposition's promise to repeal it was discouraging businesses from investing in long-term emissions cuts. She said the Carbon Farming Initiative, under which companies can offset up to 5 per cent of their emissions through agricultural projects, was being held back by political uncertainty that made companies reluctant to buy carbon credits.

Martijn Wilder, head of Baker & McKenzie's global environmental markets practice, said some owners of small gas facilities had not known they were above the emissions threshold for the tax - 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year - until recently.

But he said most big energy and resources companies had assessed their emissions under the national reporting scheme and were well prepared.

''Corporate entities that have been very vocal about the specific cost impacts on their business … cannot really justify any argument that 'we're not ready'.''

Grant Anderson, head of Allens' climate change group, said businesses less prepared for the carbon price included natural gas suppliers and pipeline operators, which could be liable for direct emissions and the emissions embodied in the gas.