The Federal Government’s climate change adviser Ross Garnaut has labelled Australia one of the largest drags on global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

He also argues that the nation has the most to gain from effective global action to combat climate change.

In the second of a series of papers updating his 2008 climate change review, Professor Garnaut argues Australia, Canada and the United States have been the “largest drags on the global mitigation effort”.

He also labelled the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009 as a “diplomatic fiasco” but said it was rescued from comprehensive failure by US President Barack Obama's climate change understandings with the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa during the meeting itself.

Professor Garnaut says the outcomes of the Copenhagen and Cancun climate meetings have led to a “messy world” in relation to the setting of each country's ambitions on emissions reductions.

“But they have embodied strong progress on several crucial and difficult issues, and may have laid a basis eventually for the comprehensive and binding international agreement that is still necessary to avoid high risks of dangerous climate change,” the paper says.

Professor Garnaut says most developed countries are reasonably well placed to make full contributions to achieving strong global mitigation goals.

But he says China's attitude will be crucial “because it is the world's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, because it is by far the largest prospective source of emissions growth and because economic and strategic competition between China and the United States is important in the policy dynamics of both countries.”

Professor Garnaut argues Australia has much to gain from playing a key role in global efforts to combat climate change.

He said Australia was one of four developed countries with Canada, the United States and Norway whose economic structures had evolved most elaborately around the abundance of low-cost fossil fuels.

But while this created a domestic political challenge, Australia had the greatest interest in effective mitigation.

Australia has “exceptional advantages” in supplying virtually all the of the potentially major low-emissions energy sources including uranium oxide, solar power and unusually productive opportunites for development of algae as a low-cost source of bio-fuels.

The report is available at http://www.garnautreview.org.au/