The Federal Government's emissions trading scheme has been likened to the ''Y2K scam'' by climate change sceptic Professor Ian Plimer.
In a wide-ranging speech aimed at debunking commonly held views on climate change the professor of mining geology at Adelaide University said the Nationals were the only political party that included climate change sceptics.
''I don't think it's true that all the political parties are supportive of the current government's policy,'' he said.
''Many [rural people] that vote are really going to suffer from any emissions trading.''
He said he would ''really like to know the detail'' of any carbon emissions trading scheme.
''If you thought Y2K was a scam, you wait for this one,'' he told a Sydney Mining Club lunch yesterday.
The Rudd Government said recently it would push ahead with its planned 2010 start for an emissions trading scheme, but it is yet to disclose short-term targets.
Dubbed the ''inconvenient professor'' by mining industry chiefs, Professor Plimer said large amounts of scientific evidence already questioned the existence of human-generated climate change.
He said scientific research in Australia was more likely to go ahead if it shadowed Government policy.
''Scientists play politics the same as everyone else,'' he said in his speech, titled ''Human-induced Climate Change a Load of Hot Air''.
''I think we've got people playing games in politics,'' he said.
''If you want the research funding and if you want the money, then ... follow the money, follow the pocket of paradise, but it could actually send us broke.''
Reported ''doomsday'' scenarios attributed to human-induced climate change were overstated or wrong, he said. Reports that Tuvalu would be inundated as sea levels rose had been debunked by scientists who had known since 1830 that the island nation was sinking, he said.
''The problem with Tuvalu is that it sits on a crack of the Pacific Ocean where the ocean floor is sinking: no wonder it is inundated.''.
The number of hurricanes around the world was now decreasing, he said.
Sea ice in western Antarctica was ''a little bit unstable'' while sea ice on the east of the continent was ''getting bigger''. ''The continent of Antarctica is actually rising.''
Well-known active volcanoes were sitting under Antarctica and ''pumping out exceptionally hot air''.
Carbon dioxide levels had been ''very much higher in the past'' and the world was at one of the lowest levels of CO2 in history.
''Most of the emissions come from natural sources, and most of the emissions we don't even put into our calculations.'' Sea levels had risen 130m over the past 14,000 years, or 1cm per year, far from doomsday scenarios, he said. AAP