Former British prime minister Theresa May has criticised Australia for not being proactive enough in combating climate change while visiting the nation for the first time.
The ex-Conservative Party leader, who served in the top job from 2016 to 2019 before leaving Downing Street over her failure to secure a Brexit deal, is in Australia at the invitation of the Victorian Liberal Party.
Ms May appeared to take a thinly-veiled dig at the party's federal branch on Friday when alluding to the coalition government's climate change credentials during an address at a business event in Melbourne.
The MP for the UK constituency of Maidenhead branded as "absolutely wrong" the recurring argument that countries must choose between tackling climate change or continuing to grow the economy.
"You can do well by your economy and deal with climate. It just means you have to do business in a different way," Ms May told the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry lunch, where she spoke for an undisclosed fee.
"Some of the innovations we're seeing around climate change for the future, I think are hugely exciting.
"I know I'm sitting here in Australia so I'm bound to say this: I hope Australia is going to pick up this agenda of climate change rather more proactively than it has done up to now."
The Australian government last year formally committed to reaching net zero by 2050 on the eve of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow after tense negotiations within the coalition, before modelling underpinning the target was publicly released.
November's climate talks ended with a global agreement that kept alive the goal of capping warming at 1.5C to prevent catastrophic climate change.
But Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia would stick to its six-year-old commitment to cut emissions by 26 to 28 per cent by 2030, noting a 35 per cent drop is expected by then.
Australia's net zero by 2050 pledge came two years after the May government enshrined the same commitment into law, becoming the first major economy to do so.
Ms May said she recognised transition "issues" with major elements of the Australian economy, such as the nation's $202 billion mining sector, but urged it to embrace innovation as the "way of the future".
"For younger generations, it is so important," she said.
"If we don't do something about this, then sadly that future would be a rather different one than the prosperous and exciting future that we want it to be for them."
In response to Ms May's comments, a spokeswoman for Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor said Australia's track record on climate action "speaks for itself".
"We have reduced emissions faster than many comparable countries and on a per-person basis, we are forecast to achieve a similar or greater reduction than what the EU, US, Japan, Canada, New Zealand and others are simply hoping to achieve at this point," she said.
"Our policies will continue to be set here in Australia by Australians in Australia's national interest."
Ms May is due to speak to the Victorian branch of the Liberal Party on Saturday as part of a push to boost opportunities for women in politics.
Opposition Leader Matthew Guy said he would take her advice, with women accounting for seven of 24 members of his shadow cabinet ahead of the 2022 state election.
