A "senior gathering" of state and territory environment ministers will be a key opportunity to tackle climate change while the federal government fails to take it seriously, Simon Corbell says, despite the absence of ministers from Liberal Party-governed jurisdictions.
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The ACT Environment Minister will join his Victorian counterpart Lisa Neville, Queensland's Steven Miles and South Australia's Ian Hunter at the meeting in Adelaide on Monday arranged by Premier Jay Weatherill.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change executive secretary Christiana Figueres will also attend to provide an update on international developments in the lead-up to the Paris climate conference in December.
But the environment ministers of NSW, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory will not be present.
Mr Corbell said he understood all environment ministers had been invited, but only officials from the other jurisdictions would attend.
"We have to view this positively as a good first step, this is the first time for a very long time that states and territories have sought to come together to talk about issues of climate change," he said.
"There is a significant opportunity for state and territories to collaborate to drive support of large-scale renewable energy and respond to climate change in the absence of cohesive federal government actions."
With its 90 per cent renewable energy target by 2020 and aim for a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels, Mr Corbell said the ACT was at the forefront of tackling climate change but wanted to build on its actions and collaborate with other "proactive" jurisdictions.
The ministers would discuss ways the jurisdictions can create policies to encourage renewable energy generation such as the ACT's feed-in-tariffs for large-scale wind and solar, and domestic roof-top solar.
Opportunities to improve energy-efficiency programs through collaboration would also be discussed to drive down costs and reach more households with energy savings.
"There's the opportunity to establish common operating arrangements for mandated energy-efficiency schemes across jurisdictions," Mr Corbell said.
"I don't think it's about getting the federal government to pay attention … it's about acting because the federal government is failing to act.
"When it comes to energy policy it's the states and territories that have the legislative power to deal with that issue."
Mr Corbell said the federal government was not seriously interested in addressing climate change or supporting the uptake of low-carbon technologies and the economic opportunities presented.
So far about 40 per cent of the ACT's energy comes from renewable sources.
Upcoming reverse auctions for large-scale solar and more large-scale wind projects will push the ACT over its 90 per cent target, Mr Corbell said.
"The cost of meeting our nation-leading target peaks at only about $4 per household per week, and this is offset by savings from mandated energy-efficiency improvement schemes," he said.
