Labor has rebuffed an invitation from the Abbott government to resume negotiations over the renewable energy target because no specific concessions were offered to break the deadlock between the major parties.

The environment minister, Greg Hunt, and industry minister, Ian Macfarlane, wrote to Labor ministers on Thursday asking them to return to the negotiating table because the current stalemate will eventually cause electricity prices to rise, new investments to stall and existing projects to be forced into financial administration because they could not refinance.

“The government wants to ensure renewables play an increasing role in Australia’s future energy mix … the government is proposing the RET be adjusted to provide a long-term sustainable role for renewables as a growing part of the broader energy mix. The type of adjustment was, and remains, open for negotiation,” the ministers wrote.

But Labor’s environment spokesman, Mark Butler, said the “letter contains no change [to the government’s previous position]. Of course, Labor remains ready to resume negotiations in the event that the government takes a more credible approach to securing the future of this vital industry.”

And he insisted the uncertainty crippling the industry was the fault of the government.

“The prime minister created this uncertainty by walking away from his election promise to keep the renewable energy target in place, effectively killing 14 years of bipartisan support. That’s why Labor agreed to discussions with the government in recent months,” Butler said.

But Kane Thornton, the chief executive of the Clean Energy Council, said he thought Labor should return to the talks “to see whether the government is genuine … and prepared to move beyond their original negotiating position.”

Labor walked out of the talks earlier this month, with the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, insisting “there is no point in leading people up the garden path” or having negotiations with people who didn’t want to negotiate.

The government had originally signalled it wanted very deep cuts to the target – which was intended to deliver 41,000 gigawatt hours of renewable energy by 2020. It commissioned the businessman and self-professed climate sceptic Dick Warburton to undertake a review, which recommended the target be slashed to about 16,000 gigawatt hours.

But after fierce resistance from industry and concerted criticism of that review, the federal cabinet asked Hunt and Macfarlane to try to reach a bipartisan agreement about the future of the program that would allow continued investment without fear of policy change.

Macfarlane said the government wanted a target of about 26,000 gigawatt hours – with no change to the subsidies for household rooftop solar panels and a full exemption from the scheme for all energy-intensive industries, such as aluminium, copper, zinc and cement. Labor – and the renewables industry – say a target in the high 30,000s is necessary for new investment to continue.

The Australian Aluminium Council has also been lobbying in Canberra to get a resolution on the issue in order to achieve the full exemption from the RET for aluminium.

The Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm has been counting crossbench votes for his own plan to wind back the RET by counting pre-existing investments in hydro-electricity in order to avoid new investments in wind farms, but experts have questioned offering hydro companies such a windfall gain.