Billionaire mining magnate Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest has thrown his support behind a levy on fossil fuel companies and wants the industry to compensate Australians for the harm it is doing to the climate.
Speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, Dr Forrest also blasted nuclear energy - a technology the federal opposition has expressed interest in - and said the Labor government was in danger of missing its 43 per cent emissions reduction target by 2030.
"If we continue delaying, obfuscating, bringing up talking points instead of policy to save our country ... that's the risk," he told the audience.
A few weeks earlier, the Superpower Institute's Ross Garnaut and Rod Sims used the same stage to call for a carbon solutions levy that would initially generate $100 billion a year.
Dr Forrest said it would hit 100 fossil fuel extraction sites and imports rather than broadly apply wherever emissions occurred in the economy.
"The beauty of this levy is that it does not penalise everyday Australians - it only penalises the perpetrators of this crisis," he said.
The proceeds would be spent on cost-of-living relief for consumers, including energy bill support, as well as subsiding the development of low-carbon manufacturing of steel, aluminium and other products.
The billionaire also took issue "with this new line that we should stop the rollout of green energy and that nuclear energy will be a fairy godmother".
"Misinformed, unscientific, uneconomic, plucked-out-of-thin-air, bulldust of nuclear policies, of politicians masquerading as leaders, helps no one," he said.
The coalition has yet to firm up its energy policy but is expected to reopen the nuclear debate in Australia.
Opposition climate change spokesman Ted O'Brien confirmed the coalition was looking at nuclear energy "as part of a balanced energy mix" and considering leveraging the existing sites of retiring coal plants.
"We've got to leave behind the old days when people try to pit one technology against the other," he told reporters on Monday.
He was unable to put a cost on an individual small modular reactor but said in other countries - such as Canada - with nuclear in the mix, energy bills were lower.
Dr Forrest said he was "agnostic" on technology but nuclear was more expensive than renewables and would take too long to develop.
"Do you think that nuclear came out of nowhere? No, it didn't.
"It's been pushed by the fossil fuel sector as a great way to delay the whole country for 20 years from switching over to cheaper energy."
Dr Forrest has made his fortune from Fortescue, one of the biggest iron ore producers in the world, and is in the process of eliminating emissions from the company's operations.
He defended Fortescue's progress on decarbonisation and the amount invested into the cause but conceded it "was not there yet".
As well as a carbon solutions levy, Dr Forrest called for an accelerated clean energy rollout and a climate trigger in environmental law.
Greens environment spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said the business case had been made for assessing the climate damage of big projects.
“Today Twiggy Forrest backed the growing call for a climate trigger in environment law and I hope that Labor were listening - they should back my bill for a climate trigger before the parliament right now," she said.
