Australia is under fire at the Paris climate talks amid concern it is taking advantage of overly flexible rules to claim greenhouse gas emissions are falling when they are on the increase. 
At Monday's summit opening Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Australia would ratify the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol - the climate treaty that applies to some industrialised countries only.
Australia is relying on its negotiating teams securing a definition of emissions that allows the country to count a reduction in deforestation towards its target.
But delegates from a group called the Association of Small Island States expressed concern that the definition would in reality allow Australia to increase its industrial emissions by 2020 to about 11 per cent above 2000 levels while still being able to claim it is meeting its target of a 5 per cent cut in that period.
A senior South African delegate said Australia was playing within the rules. But a member of a major country negotiating team said observers who did not think there was a problem were either unaware of the technical issues involved or making a "strategic assessment that it is not worth making a fuss over".
That is because dispute over the Kyoto Protocol relates to only emissions up to 2020, and the main game at the summit is winning support for a long-term future where countries will become net-zero emitters.
Environment Minister Greg Hunt said "The Prime Minister made a clear commitment this week to [Kyoto Protocol] ratification. We're fully confident the rules will remain as they are and accommodate all of our objectives."
Former Greens leader Christine Milne, in Paris as a global Greens ambassador, said work by the University of Melbourne had detailed accounting issues that allowed Australia's emissions to rise even as the country met formal commitments to cut them.
Australia has only to reduce emissions by 0.5 per cent each year between 2013 and 2020 to meet its second-stage Kyoto commitments.
Estimates suggest the favourable ruling allowing reduced deforestation to be counted against industrial and other greenhouse gas emissions would amount to between 60 and 120 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Australia also went into the second period of the Kyoto Protocol with a large batch of "surplus" emissions credits, gained when they beat their target for the first period. That target allowed Australia to increase emissions by 8 per cent between 1990 and 2012. The surplus credits are now used to offset any rise in emissions between 2013 and 2020.
Emissions from Australia's energy sector have risen 3.5 per cent in the 15 months since the carbon price was ditched, says consultant Pitt & Sherry. theage.com.au -Read more