Government accused of blocking plan to cut coal'It would be catastrophic for our Pacific'
Australia has been applauded by delegates at climate change ministerial talks in Paris for returning to active climate diplomacy. 
With the major UN climate summit set to begin at the end of this month, some 60 countries have sent ministers to Paris for advance talks.
Climate activists have praised Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt's work for achieving a breakthrough in a six-year-old deadlock on a side protocol, delivering a bonus cut equal to two years' total global carbon emissions.
And Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has negotiated for Australia to become one of two co-chairs of the UN's Green Climate Fund, a  body that Tony Abbott once derided as a "Bob Brown bank".
"We bring a new energy and a new commitment to these processes," Mr Hunt told Fairfax Media.
"At the first plenary session in the ministerial meeting, of all the countries that spoke only two countries received strong applause - Australia and Canada," in response to their opening statements, Mr Hunt said. The session was closed to the media.
A prominent Australian activist, the Climate Institute's John Connor, said: "There's an audible sigh of relief around the world when everyone realised that two countries with formidable diplomatic corps are not going to be ridden on mandates to be difficult."
Both countries have recently replaced conservative prime ministers with more centrist ones.
The Paris meeting is not expected to meet the international commitment to restrain global temperatures to 2 degrees above the pre-industrial average.
Hopes of achieving this by the end of the century now depend on a follow-up process that the Paris meeting is to design.
"Paris will produce an outcome of about 2.7 degrees but everybody is committed to the Paris process to review national targets," said Mr Hunt.
"The only figure being talked about is five years  - we will probably come back every five years, in 2020, 2025 and 2030, for subsidiary rounds of new pledges" for the pledging period to 2030.
"The Paris meeting won't deliver 2 degrees, but the Paris process will," he said.
Last week Mr Hunt led a breakthrough in a deadlocked effort to cut greenhouse emissions through the Montreal Protocol.
Set up 30 years ago to cut ozone-depleting gases, the international Montreal Protocol was hailed as a success.
The looming ozone problem was averted.
But the replacement gases that were embraced, hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs, have become a new problem because they add to the greenhouse effect of global warming.
Countries have been trying to phase these gases out through the Montreal Protocol but have been stymied by a negotiating standoff. 
Mr Hunt brokered an agreement at a meeting of 197 countries in Dubai last week. That has started the process of planning the phase-out of HFCs.
The process is expected to take over a decade. But it is expected to eliminate the equivalent of at least 90 billion tonnes of carbon emissions, equal to two years of total global carbon output.
The Climate Institute's Mr Connor said: "We think it's a really important move and the Australian government played a good role. For too long it's been shoved around. India was a blockage."
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