While the big miners have not debated the science behind climate change theories, Rio is concerned about issues of international competitiveness and does not want to see a return to the failed proposals of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

“The CPRS was constructed in the expectation of an imminent global agreement on carbon,” Rio’s Australian managing director, David Peever, wrote in a piece for The Australian.

“Regrettably, it is now clear such an agreement is a distant mirage.”

He revealed the final design of the CPRS would have cost Rio’s export business about $A3 billion during the first decade.

In a warning to the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee, Peever wants “fact-based analysis” of carbon costs faced by competing industries overseas, along with balanced debate.

He also criticised the effectiveness of abatement modelling resulting from a “certain carbon price”

“Generally these models are not real world as they assume away dynamics, employ painless economic transformations, have perfect foresight and often use optimistic technology assumptions.”

Peever, who is a member of the federal government’s roundtable on climate change, also put some perspective on Australia’s contributions to global carbon emissions.

“While Australia ranks among the world's largest per capita emitters and steps must be taken to reduce our footprint, it is also true we represent little more than 1 per cent of global carbon emissions,” he said in his piece for the national broadsheet.

“To argue that Australia lags the rest of the world is also much more rhetoric than fact.

“Australia must not lose focus on the long-term objective or underestimate the scale of the transformation being proposed.

“We must also ensure that investment and job losses do not become an unintended consequence of an otherwise well-intentioned national determination to play our part in mitigating climate change.”