When it announced its decision to source all of Canberra's electricity from renewable sources by 2020 almost three years ago there was widespread scepticism.

Today, with almost a year to go, the Labor-Greens coalition is making solid progress through an innovative mix of roof mounted solar panels, solar energy farms, green power purchases by homes and businesses, wind power and even energy from waste.

The ACT's target compares to the current national renewable target of just 23.5 per cent or 33,000 gigawatt hours in 2020.

It also totally eclipses the goals mooted under the Federal Government's proposed National Energy Guarantee which, if adopted, would seek to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030.

That, unfortunately, is the rub. Because the ACT has done so well in an area where Labor and Coalition Federal Governments have been unable to deliver coherent policy or inspirational leadership, there is a strong temptation to ignore Federal Energy Minister, Josh Frydenberg, while Canberra gets on with the job alone.

This appears to be one of the factors driving ACT Climate Change Minister and senior Greens MLA, Shane Rattenbury's, refusal to support the Federal scheme.

He has described the National Energy Guarantee proposal as "problematic", slammed its emissions reduction target as insufficient to meet our commitments under the Paris climate agreement and said electricity producers need to do more.

Mr Rattenbury is also concerned that the plan would lock in a role for coal and for gas.

While all these criticisms are valid, Mr Rattenbury seems wilfully blind to one important point.

That is that the proposals to go to next month's COAG energy ministers meeting are the nearest thing to an achievable national energy policy Australia has seen for well over a decade.

This lack of a policy has contributed to rising power prices and problems with the security of supply across the country, most notably in South Australia.

The big power companies have been reluctant to invest in new generating capacity, whether fossil fuel based or built around renewables, because there has been no clear legislative framework setting out the ground rules.

Australia is at a point where this may soon have a noticeable impact on peoples' quality of life and the nation's economic performance. A tipping point is approaching. We just can't go on this way.

With the Federal ALP hinting last October it would consider supporting the NEG and with the anti-NEG South Australian Labor Government being defeated at last weekend's state poll, there are some grounds to hope the policy stalemate may soon be broken.

Mr Rattenbury, and the government of which he is a vital part, are two of the last remaining obstacles.

Politics has always been the art of the possible. While clearly in a position to leverage concessions, Mr Rattenbury, ACT Labor and The Greens need to ask themselves if their ideological purity trumps the national interest.

Surely 80 per cent of something has to be worth more than 100 per cent of nothing.