Qld MP breaks ranks on RET target

A Queensland coalition backbencher has broken ranks on the renewable energy target political impasse, calling on the federal government to consider the clean energy sector's compromise offer.

The Clean Energy Council, the peak renewables industry body, is proposing a target of 33,500 gigawatt hours which is halfway between the government's offer of 32,000GWh and Labor's position somewhere around the mid-to-high 30,000s.

Ken O'Dowd hopes it can be a negotiating point and both sides can split the difference in order to give renewable energy workers in his electorate certainty.

But Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane is unmoved.

"I'm not considering anything over 32,000 gigawatt hours," Mr Macfarlane told ABC Radio.

The Greens want the target maintained at its legislated figure of 41,000 gigawatts.

"We're very concerned the bar is being lowered further and further," Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young told ABC radio.