The Turnbull government is facing pressure from its traditional backers in big business and rural industry to put a price on carbon emissions and inject greater certainty into energy policy.
Commonwealth Bank boss Ian Narev has lamented the political inaction on climate change while the peak farming body added its voice to growing calls for a market-based mechanism to deal with emissions from electricity generation.
Major energy provider AGL Energy also on Tuesday endorsed carbon pricing in the form of an emissions intensity scheme to help fix the nation's energy woes.
Mr Narev was quizzed about his bank's environmental policies at a parliamentary hearing in Canberra, including why it does not take rising sea levels into account when considering the value of homes in low-lying areas.
"Even in our political environment people cannot agree on what the appropriate policies might be relating to the environment," Mr Narev told the politicians.
"As a major bank it's very difficult for us to be the instrument of implementing climate policy."
The bank would face criticism if it started devaluing people's homes on the basis of climate change risk, such as those in bushfire zones, but it did factor in environmental principles for other loans, he said.
CBA had in fact passed over or not renewed some loans solely because they didn't comply with principles for managing environmental risks, and at the moment has about five times more exposure to renewables than coal.
ANZ boss Shayne Elliott said the bank was assessing the risk of rising sea levels and would take it into account when lending in future.
"We do absolutely run our business with that in mind," he told the committee.
The bank took climate change into account when lending to businesses, he said, and would be less likely to hand out longer loans for new coal and fossil fuel projects given the regulatory uncertainty.
"We take climate change seriously. We believe there is a transition risk. We price that in," he said.
The bank's exposure to coal was declining, Mr Elliott said, accounting for around $1.5 billion of ANZ's $900 billion balance sheet.
Meanwhile its exposure to renewable energy was "quickly growing".
The National Farmers Federation told a separate inquiry the national electricity market is broken, citing recent blackouts and an "indefensible" spike in power prices.
It wants the government to reconsider its opposition to an emissions intensity scheme, which would impose a price on dirty generators, or another market-based mechanism to give certainty and ensure everyone can access affordable and reliable power.
"We want the market to sort it out. We want a technology-neutral approach. We don't think what we've got is working," NFF president Fiona Simson told ABC radio.
The government's green bank says Australia's electricity sector would respond to policy signals such as carbon pricing.
"A stable 'bankable' policy framework is necessary to promote investor confidence and capital availability and reduce risk, financing costs and the overall costs of the transition," the Clean Energy Finance Corporation says in its submission to the Finkel inquiry.
The government argues an emissions intensity scheme will push up the price of power for business and households, while doing nothing to improve reliability.
