Australia has become the latest country to signal its interest in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies after the government announced plans for new laws that will allow companies to store captured greenhouse gas emissions below the seabed.

Under proposed amendments to the country's offshore petroleum legislation, polluters will be able to transport hundreds of thousands of tonnes of harmful carbon dioxide gas to storage facilities buried under the ocean.

Resources minister Martin Ferguson told parliament that the move would be a win-win for the environment and industry.

"Companies are keen to identify suitable storage sites to match their parallel development of carbon dioxide capture from coal or gas powered electricity generation and from other industrial and extractive processes," he said.

The proposed changes come just months after government opened a CO2 storage facility ¨C the first in the southern hemisphere ¨C designed to hold up to 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted from a Victorian power station.

The investment in CCS comes as the Australian government, elected last year on the back of a pledge to improve its environmental record, comes to terms with the country's position as the worlds worst per capita polluter.

A separate government report this week underlined Australia's reliance on carbon heavy coal, revealing that the nation's greenhouse gas emissions had soared by 26 million tonnes over the two years to 2007 ¨C a 4.6 per cent increase. Emissions last year were expected to have been 6 per cent higher than that in 1990 at 585 million metric tons.

Climate change minister Penny Wong pointed out that while Australia was on track to meet its Kyoto Protocol targets, more work needed to be done to cut emissions. The government is due to publish a document detailing how it plans to cut CO2 emissions to 40 per cent of 2000 levels by 2050 in the next few months.