Australia must be more consistent on climate change after a series of erratic policy changes, a senior United Nations environment program official says.
Kaveh Zahedi, the UN's Environment Program (UNEP) Asia Pacific representative, says Australia's climate policies have failed to reflect wider community concerns over climate change.
"It seems we are getting mixed messages (on climate change policy)," Zahedi told AAP.
Zahedi's comments come ahead of next week's Paris summit on climate change, which is aimed at forging an agreement to cut greenhouse emissions, and limiting global warming to 2C.
Policy measures to deal with climate change have included a carbon tax introduced by the former Labor government, which was later repealed by the coalition under Tony Abbott.
Zahedi said Australia needed to bring policy certainty to the Paris negotiating table next week.
He hoped the underlying message from the Paris summit would be clear and "override some of the mixed messages that might or might not exist at the national level".
