Australia will go to the Paris climate change summit with public backing to do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions if it helps get a global deal, according to a new poll by the Lowy Institute. 
The survey for the foreign affairs think-tank found 62 per cent of people backed Australia bolstering its emissions reduction targets in the interests of a reaching a global climate agreement - something nations hope to do at the two-week Paris summit starting Monday.
Only 36 per cent of respondents said Australia should stick to its current goals regardless of what other countries do.
Australia has pledged to cut its emissions by 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by the end of the next decade, a target many environment groups have dubbed weak.
Countries' emissions targets will not be negotiated in Paris. Nations have been allowed to nominate their own goals before the conference, with negotiators in Paris instead focused on developing a review system to encourage higher ambition from countries over time.
Minister for the Environment Greg Hunt has said that the federal government would lift its 2030 climate goal in coming years if required under any review system.
The Lowy Institute poll, which surveyed 1002 people in late   October and early   November, also found Australians were largely divided on policy to meet the targets.
Although 51 per cent backed retaining the Turnbull government's direct action scheme - which pays companies and farmers to make emissions cuts - 43 per cent supported the reintroduction of a carbon price.
Meanwhile, Australia's lead negotiator for Paris, Peter Woolcott, told a business seminar in Melbourne there was reason for "cautious optimism" that the summit would deliver.
Mr Woolcott said Australian priorities for a Paris deal included: seeing all countries, especially major economies, sign-up to robust emissions reduction efforts, building in transparency and accountability to track progress and setting up a durable process to build action towards keeping global warming below two degrees.
Mr Woolcott said the real danger was not whether a new global climate agreement would emerge from Paris, but whether it would be minimal.
"If this is the outcome, then much of what Australia wants, and I think what we need as a globe ... may be lost," he said.
He said the biggest issues would be climate financing for developing countries and how the difference between rich and poor nations was reflected.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop and Mr Hunt will all represent Australia in Paris. Mr Woolcott leads the team that will do most negotiating on the conference floor.