Climate change: Australia yet to open account

Canberra: Australia's lacklustre approach to climate change has resulted in a 70 percent dip in investment from foreign organisations, a Climate Council report said.

The report, titled "Lagging Behind: Australia and the Global Response to Climate Change", concluded that while super powers had accelerated their strategies to deal with climate change, Australia had fallen behind, reported Xinhua.

The result has seen a host of green businesses moving overseas, with China and the US profiting from Australia's refusal to cut carbon emissions.

"We are lagging behind the rest of the world and this year particularly has seen a big drop," Climate Council professor Tim Flannery said Monday.

"We've had a loss of 70 percent of new investment in renewable energy in this country," Flannery said.

Renewable energy garnered 12.9 percent of the US' total energy mix in 2013, while the country is on track to reduce emissions by 17 percent by 2020.

However, Australia is well behind its renewable energy goals, set by former prime minister John Howard.

"Ever since the Howard era, we've understood what it was, which was 41,000 megawatts to be installed by 2020," said Flannery.

"But the Abbott government has now brought that into question and we are uncertain as to what the target will be and that's a big part of the uncertainty that's holding back investment."