The move marks the first major criticism of the scheme from a senior Labor politician.

In a letter to federal Climate Change Assistant Minister Greg Combet, Bligh raised concerns the CPRS will significantly reduce the competitiveness of Queensland’s coal production.

The key concerns listed include:

• The level of assistance for mines unearthing gases through mining (fugitive emissions),
• The negative initial impact CPRS could have on electricity generation using waste coal mine gas, and
• Constraints on some mines to pass costs on to energy-generating customers because of restrictive long-term contracts.

In her letter, Bligh pointed to Commonwealth Treasury modelling that confirmed Queensland will suffer the most from emissions pricing.

“It projects that we will experience the largest percentage decline in GDP by 2050 – relative to a without-CPRS scenario,” she said.

“Options to assist the coal industry to transition to the CPRS need to be developed that go beyond that currently proposed.

“Some of our coal mines have extensive methane emissions and have very limited capacity to reduce them at the present time with current technologies.

“The CPRS needs to provide specialised assistance to these mines as a transitional measure.”

Combet told ABC he had been in discussions with the coal industry to try and target federal government assistance to coal mines that have high levels of methane emissions.

But he also maintained his position that the coal industry should not be treated as an emissions-intensive trade-exposed industry, telling the news service it would equate to the better part of $A10 billion in assistance.

Consulting firm ACIL Tasman has estimated the CPRS will cost up to 3300 coal mining jobs and 9900 jobs in total, with 16 mines to prematurely close in the first 10 years of implementation in the scheme’s current form.

From its report, ACIL said 15 (19%) of 75 surveyed coal mines would be considered very emissions-intensive and would face a significant impact on costs because of the scheme.

The firm said the cost to the coal mining industry would be in the realm of $A14.35 billion ($US11.42 billion) using 2008-09 coal prices, while transitional assistance would recover only 3% of this amount, at $441 million.

ACIL estimated that coal production would be 22 million tonnes per annum below business as usual under the scheme.

A federal Senate vote on the CPRS is expected next month.