THE independent senator Steve Fielding was accompanied by four scientists to his meeting with the Federal Government as it tried to find a last-minute strategy to gain support for its emissions trading scheme.
Before the meeting Senator Fielding said he had an "open mind" about the link between human activity and global warming.
"Global warming quite clearly over the last decade hasn't been actually occurring," he said.
The senator then added: "I also believe there is climate change."
The Coalition is considering using its numbers in the Senate to prevent the emissions trading legislation from being brought to a vote. The Government had wanted a vote next week.
If the vote was avoided this would delay the opportunity for a double dissolution.
For that election to happen the legislation would have to be rejected or fail to pass two times with an intervening gap of at least three months.
The Minister for Climate Change, Penny Wong, said the Government had an electoral mandate to introduce the emissions trading scheme.
"Eighteen months ago Australians sent politicians a clear message that they wanted action on climate change," Senator Wong said.
"They made it clear they wanted to leave a decent legacy for their children."
Senator Wong said both the independent senators, the Greens and the Coalition had accepted the need for action on climate change.
"The Senate can decide whether it will help slow climate change down, or whether it will help climate change accelerate," she said.
Four scientists accompanied Senator Fielding to his meeting with Senator Wong and the Chief Scientist, Penny Sackett.
The Government also asked the director of the Australian National University's Climate Change Institute, Will Steffen, to attend the meeting.
With Senator Fielding were David Evans, a former carbon modeller for the former Australian Greenhouse Office; Stewart Franks, an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Newcastle; Robert Carter, an adjunct research fellow at James Cook University; and William Kininmonth, a long-serving member of the Bureau of Meteorology.
Senator Fielding is concerned with figures from the past decade which show that while carbon dioxide emissions increased global temperatures went down.
Professor Steffen described the discussion as an "open and far-ranging". While he could not comment on the details he said the issue Senator Fielding raised was one he was frequently asked.
Professor Steffen said 1998 - the beginning of the decade referred to by Senator Fielding - was the hottest year on record.
Professor Steffen described it as an "anomalous" year that should not be used as a reference point for comparisons.
He said people should also look at the long-term temperatures which showed that the past 14 years contained 13 of the 14 hottest years since records began in the 1850s.
Ocean temperatures were also a better indicator of the state of the planet than air temperatures, he said, and they had been rising rapidly.
Professor Steffen said he understood that people found climate science "bewildering". "It is very complex and there's a lot of it out there," he said.
Email a friend