French President Francois Hollande says he hopes a new deal on cutting carbon emissions will be legally binding and linked to a new UN fund that Australia has yet to support.
Mr Hollande is making the first visit by a French head of state to Australia.
Paris will host a landmark climate conference in 2015 at which countries will set new targets for tackling climate change.
During the past week of leader visits and the G20 summit, a number of countries committed financial support to the UN's Green Climate Fund designed to help poor countries.
But the Australian government is still considering its position.
Europe last month agreed to cut greenhouse emissions by at least 40 per cent by 2030 and achieve 27 per cent of power generated by renewables by the same date.
After talks with Prime Minister Tony Abbott on climate, security and trade issues, Mr Hollande told reporters in Canberra he wanted the Paris commitments to be ambitious.
"It has to be legally binding, and it has to be differentiated and it has to have some sort of link with the Green Fund," Mr Hollande said.
He is hoping that "quite a number of countries" follow Europe in making early announcements about their new targets.
"What I want to avoid is waiting until the last minute," he said.
Mr Abbott said he had raised climate change during the talks and felt it was important to get "strong and effective outcomes" from the Paris conference.
He said Australia would reach its existing target of cutting emissions by five per cent on 2000 levels by 2020 but it would not be done "in ways which cost jobs".
"It was good to hear Francois talking about a binding agreement coming out of Paris," Mr Abbott said.
"What's important is that the agreement is strong and effective and that the targets are met."
The prime minister said Australia would consider what more it could do in terms of the global fund, noting his government had introduced a $2.5 billion emissions reduction fund and was providing aid to small Pacific nations for climate mitigation.
"Australia is doing a lot and obviously we'll consider what more we can do in the weeks and months ahead."
