Sydney  - Australia aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5 per cent from 2000 levels with a maximum target of 15 per cent by 2020 if an effective global climate-change pact is signed, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's government said Monday.

The target falls far short of the 25- to 40-per-cent emissions reduction scientists and conservationists have been calling for to avert a climate change catastrophe.

However, the target for Australia, which is the world's largest per-capita producer of greenhouse gases, is closer to what businesses have been lobbying for.

"The government's target of 5 per cent by 2020 is totally unacceptable and cannot be allowed to stand," Greenpeace climate campaign coordinator John Hepburn said. "Mr Rudd has betrayed the science, betrayed the community and betrayed the next generation who will have to live with climate change impacts. He has caved in to the bullying tactics of the coal and other polluting industries."

The scheme has been generous to industries and businesses with more companies to get free permits than earlier planned and the coal industry getting more than 4 billion Australian dollars (2.6 billion US dollars) in compensation.

"Australia's commitment of a 5- to 15-per-cent reduction by 2020 is a serious and credible commitment to the global action required and is realistically attainable in the current circumstances," the government's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme White Paper said.

Some within the government had wanted the 2020 target set at a maximum 15-per-cent reduction on 2000 levels.

A year ago, immediately after Rudd took office, Australia ratified the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gases, which cause global warming, and promised a
60-per-cent cut by 2050.

The paper reaffirmed Australia's commitment to cut emission levels by 60 per cent of 2000 levels by 2050.

Earlier this year, Ross Garnaut, the government's top climate change adviser, recommended Canberra set itself a 10-per-cent reduction target for 2020.

He warned Rudd that it would be economic suicide to adopt ambitious targets that were not shared by other big emitters.

The carbon reduction scheme would begin from July 1, 2010. (dpa)