A potential goal to slash Australia's carbon pollution by 15 to 25 per cent is being slammed as "pathetic" by environment groups.
Reports the Abbott government is considering a 15 to 25 per cent emissions reduction target on 2005 levels by 2030 have been met with anger and disbelief among green advocates.
Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said anything in that range would be a "big fail" that left Australia at the back of the international pack.
"It would be too ridiculous to imagine," he told AAP on Tuesday.
The coalition maintains Australia will meet or beat its 2020 emissions reduction target of five per cent on 2000 levels - which translates to 13 per cent on 2005 levels.
That means a 15 per cent target by 2030 would only be a further emissions cut of two per cent over a decade.
Even at 25 per cent Australia would position itself behind most comparable developed nations.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has promised Australia will take a strong and credible target to Paris in December and accused other nations of setting "airy, fairy" goals.
China has agreed its emissions will peak by 2030 and the United States plans to cut 26 to 28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2025.
The European Union wants to curb emissions by 40 per cent on 1990 levels by 2030.
The government-funded Climate Change Authority recommended a 40 to 60 per cent cut on 2000 levels by 2030.
Recent reports suggest the government is considering shifting the base year to 2005, when carbon emissions were among the highest in Australia's history.
Shifting the base makes the targets look larger, a move Australian Conservation Foundation chief executive Kelly O'Shanassy labelled brazen and embarrassing.
"They're like naughty school kids on the way home on the bus trying to change their F for fail to a B on climate change," she told AAP.
The government has delayed the release of its post-2020 targets, which were expected this month in the lead up to the United Nation's climate conference in Paris.
Labor accused Mr Abbott of being "so frightened" of his party room he had to abandon his promise to release the targets in July and reveal them after a party meeting on August 11.
The opposition will flesh out its climate policies at the ALP conference later this month and leader Bill Shorten believes any target must be bipartisan.
"It is important, therefore, that Mr Abbott doesn't force Australia into the path of the lowest common denominator," he told reporters at a wind farm near Melbourne.
Greens senator Larissa Waters advised Labor not to stoop to the coalition's "woeful" level of ambition.
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