The Mineral Council says in its pre-budget submission report that the proposed emissions trading scheme will cost the Australian economy “at least $120 billion to 2020″ — a figure at odds with the Treasury estimate of about $2.5 billion.

The Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) “would cost thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment in regional and remote Australia, while failing to materially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions,” the Mineral Council’s pre-budget submission says.

The Treasury data, released in November, estimated that the CPRS would be “broadly revenue neutral” in its initial years and result in a cumulative deficit of $1.2 billion over 2012-13.  The annual deficit would be highest in 2014-15, reaching roughly $1.2 billion, with the scheme moving out of deficit from 2016-17 onwards – though with the cumulative deficit persisting until at least 2019-2020.