Labor says emissions would be 200m tonnes lower if Greens had supported CPRS

Pat Conroy lashes Greens' decision to side with the Coalition as a 'massive error' with far-reaching consequences

Australia's carbon emissions would be more than 200m tonnes lower and electricity prices would be cheaper if the Greens had supported the carbon pollution reduction scheme a decade ago, the Labor frontbencher Pat Conroy says.

Speaking on the 10th anniversary of the 2009 parliamentary defeat of Labor's emissions trading system, Conroy has lashed the political failure to develop a national energy policy as "perhaps the most consequential policy failure of the modern era in Australia".