Tony Abbott might be in for a bit of a surprise when he takes a business delegation to New York as part of his current overseas trip.

Earlier this week Australia's prime minister was reacting to news from the US that President Barack Obama’s administration had announced new rules to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 30% by 2030.

Describing the US actions as “sensible” and in line with his own, Abbott then inserted his customary attack on any market-based mechanism to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions.

"There is no carbon tax in the United States. There is no emissions trading scheme in the United States," he told parliament.

Except, there are emissions trading schemes in the US and the surprise Abbott might get when he visits the Big Apple is that New York is part of one of those emissions trading schemes that don't exist.

Along with eight other states, New York takes part in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

Announcing the new rules on power plants, the US Environmental Protection Agency even pointed out that “from 2009 through 2012, the nine RGGI states invested auction proceeds of more than $700m in programs that lower costs for energy consumers and reduce CO2 emissions”.

If the EPA proposals survive the expected attacks then individual states will be allowed to use a range of actions to cut emissions from power plants. One of those actions recommended by the EPA? "Market-based trading programs”.

Abbott might like to know that California (a state with a bigger GDP than Australia’s) also has a non-existent market-based emissions trading scheme that also gets a mention in the new EPA rules.

Australia’s environment minister, Greg Hunt, also claimed the US was cleaning up power stations “without a carbon tax” when the EPA rules specifically identify carbon pricing as a way of cutting emissions from the power sector.

Hunt could at least have checked one his favourite sources – good old Wikipedia.

Just days before the US announcement, Abbott gave a speech to a mining industry dinner that gave a far clearer picture of his views on energy and fossil fuels. He told the miners that “our prosperity rides on the ore and gas and coal carriers steaming the seas to our north”.

He described how his government was establishing a “one-stop shop for environmental approvals” – a description that appeared to pre-judge the fate of all environmental applications (where’s that rubber stamp?)

But then came this:

It’s particularly important that we do not demonise the coal industry and if there was one fundamental problem, above all else, with the carbon tax was that it said to our people, it said to the wider world, that a commodity which in many years is our biggest single export, somehow should be left in the ground and not sold. Well really and truly, I can think of few things more damaging to our future."

Given Tony Abbott has surrounded himself with advisers who deny the science of climate change (which he once described as “absolute crap” but now publicly claims to accept) I’m willing to believe the prime minister when he says he “can think of few things more damaging” than leaving coal in the ground.

But if he genuinely can’t think of any, then perhaps Barack Obama might offer just one suggestion (it starts with "c" and ends in "limate") when the pair meet in Washington next week.

Last year Obama said in a climate change speech: “Some day our children and our children's children will look us in eye they and they will ask us, did we do all that we could when we had the chance to deal with this problem and leave them a cleaner, safer and more stable world?”

If Abbott is going to tell Obama that doing “all that we could” includes digging up all the available coal, then it’s going to be an interesting meeting.