Experts from the soon-to-be-abolished Climate Change Commission have vowed to push on voluntarily with their public education role.
Headed by 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery, the commission was set up two years ago by the former Labor government to increase public awareness of climate-change science.
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt last week phoned Professor Flannery and informed him of the decision to dump the commission to save money.
Mr Flannery and the other commissioners have vowed to continue their role on a voluntary basis, ABC TV reports.
They will call themselves the Climate Council and continue to release reports and engage in public debate.
Mr Hunt responded that it was a free country.
"I wish them good luck," he told ABC TV.
"It proves our point that the commission did not have to be a taxpayer funded body."
He warned against "clamping down" on freedom of speech on either side of the climate change debate.
But Mr Hunt said he agreed with and respected climate science.
The primary government scientific agency on climate change would now be the Bureau of Meteorology.
It has 1700 staff and the resources to do scientific briefings on climate change, Mr Hunt said.
He said the commission was not doing any "original scientific work" rather it was just collating the research of others.
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