Climate change campaigners in South Australia have kept up pressure on the independent Senator Nick Xenophon to commit himself to protecting the Renewable Energy Target (RET).

Hundreds of people attended a forum this week to demand the Senator commit to blocking any potential changes to the RET.

They said renewable energy employment could make up for some of South Australia's job losses in other fields.

But Senator Xenophon refused to promise anything, saying only that he was open to RET negotiations.

Adelaide man Patrick Green worked in the solar energy industry for more than six years until his job disappeared.

"I actually moved to Adelaide to take up a position in the sector and I've worked for Ingenero for the last six years, until three months ago when myself and 20 other workers were let go when the company went into receivership," he said.

Those workers blamed the uncertainty created by the RET debate, he said.

Mr Green was worried the potential changes to the target could produce more job losses.

"There are 13,000 people employed in the solar industry at the moment and conservative estimates suggest that between a third and a half of those jobs would be lost if these [federal] recommendations were adopted," he said.

"There are also 21,000 people employed in the renewable energy sector as a whole, so including wind, and many of those wind workers would be out of a job by Christmas as well."

Mr Green was among a number of pro-RET speakers at the Adelaide forum.

The Federal Government-commissioned Warburton review recommended a significant scaling back of the renewable energy scheme and the Government was expected to respond to the report soon.

RET not either/or issue: Xenophon

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Forum attendees demanded Senator Xenophon commit to blocking any potential changes to the RET, but he refused.

"I'm basically not boxing myself in. If there's bipartisanship to say 'We will spend this amount of money, not on just RET but on a boatload of programs that will increase dramatically our reduction in greenhouse gases, because ... the RET is not the only way to do it, if there's a more effective way to do it, you need to consider both, it shouldn't be either/or," he said.

Daniel Spencer from Australian Youth Climate Coalition was an organiser of the Adelaide meeting.

"Nick Xenophon has a critical vote in the Senate, along with other crossbenchers, in being able to say to the Government that they're not going to accept any cuts to the renewable energy target, so his vote's really important," he said.

"We wanted to show him that the South Australian community wants him to stand up for renewables."

South Australia was leading the nation in the use of wind energy and rooftop solar panels, but uncertainty about the RET was having an impact.

Energy company Pacific Hydro halted plans for a $240 million wind farm in the state and a solar panel manufacturer Tindo said it more than tripled its workforce with RET support.

Senator Xenophon said the state could face thousands of manufacturing job losses and with dire predictions the local unemployment rate could hit 10 per cent, he was well aware of the RET's importance for other industries.

"I actually see the solar sector as providing some genuine hope in terms of providing jobs, so we need to resolve the issue of the RET sooner rather than later," he said.

But he was at pains to back to importance of negotiation and warned of a double dissolution risk.

"If we just say no to the Government and don't try and come up with some arrangement where I want to push solar, and we say 'Stuff you' and at the end of the day it becomes a double dissolution trigger, the risk with that is, even thought the Government won't get the numbers in the Senate, they can then ram legislation through," he said.

"All these things that they want to get through that they can't get through now, which I'm not supporting, such as the Clean Energy Finance Corporation staying on and ARENA (Australian Renewable Energy Association) and the Climate Change Authority, I've got to have that at the back of my mind.

"I think it's (double dissolution) a slim risk, but I think it's a real risk."

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Senator Xenophon is manoeuvring to become a key negotiator on climate legislation, having just put forward a range of amendments to the Government's proposed direct action legislation.