Climate action needs political leadership and will, Elizabeth Lee says in Glasgow

Ms Lee said the ACT's climate policies, which had the support of the Canberra Liberals, were ambitious and the ACT was right to tackle the issue, despite contributing just 0.2 per cent of Australia's overall emissions.

"If every single one of us thought like that, we wouldn't get very far. Every step makes a difference, no matter how small. Housing, transport, heating, lighting, urban planning, infrastructure development - these are some of the key leverage points for reduced greenhouse gas emissions in urban areas and of course they come under responsibility of our sub-national governments," Ms Lee said.

Addressing the GLOBE COP26 summit of legislators at the Scottish Parliament on Saturday, Ms Lee said she believed everyone wanted action on climate change but warned citizens did want to be directly affected.

"Nobody wants their electricity bills to go up, their lights to go out or for their jobs to be at risk. Technology may have the answers to a decarbonised economy, particularly over time," she said.

"We know that we've got the community sentiment, the will and the smarts to do it. I won't stand here and tell you I think it's going to be easy. It's not."

Ms Lee told the forum legislators should review the state of the COVID-19 pandemic, assess the impact of climate change and the pandemic on developing countries, and work to build back the economy differently with a focus on transition and sustainability.

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The Opposition Leader, who is also the Liberals' spokeswoman on climate action, said she believed everyone wanted climate change action and it was a consistent top-five issue in Canberra.

"But nobody wants their electricity bills to go up, their lights to go out, or for their jobs to be at risk. Technology may have the answers to a decarbonised economy, particularly overtime and to achieve it in a way that does not deny our citizens, especially in developing economies, their livelihoods or the opportunity for a better quality of life," she said.

"But it does require leadership and political will, and this is a responsibility on all of us. We as legislators are in an enormously privileged position to be the voice for our community, and we all have a duty to leave our planet better and greener for the next generation."

The ACT government did not send a representative to the COP26 summit, but ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr last week said Ms Lee should use her trip to lobby Prime Minister Scott Morrison for faster national action on climate change.

"If the Canberra Liberals were serious about responsible climate action, then her paid trip is an opportunity to secure a more ambitious set of commitments from the Prime Minister. At the very least, this should equate to the aggregated emission targets of states and territories," Mr Barr said on Wednesday.

Ms Lee travelled to the summit as a member of a delegation of centre-right parliamentarians organised by Coalition for Conservation, an Australian conservative lobby group that advocates for climate action.

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