Australia is keeping company with the likes of Russia and Saudi Arabia through mass exports of fossil fuels, climate advocates argue, as they call on the government to embrace decarbonised energy projects.
A new report released by The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative details how Australia has quadrupled exports of emissions-heavy fuel sources since 1990.
"It's absolutely irresponsible," initiative president Kumi Naidoo told AAP.
"It basically places Australia in the category of a petro-state, a term that's used talking about Azerbaijian and countries in the (Persian) Gulf.
The report finds Australia exports 48 per cent of the world's traded metallurgical coal, 19 per cent of the world's thermal coal and 20 per cent of the world's liquefied natural gas.
Overall, Mr Naidoo said that only Russia, and perhaps Saudi Arabia, sent a larger quantity of fossil fuels offshore.
"Bottom line is, Australia is the second or third exporter of fossil fuels in the world," he said.
"And the fossil fuels Australia sells overseas are responsible for a far greater amount of climate pollution each year than is emitted from the country itself."
The initiative focuses on exports as it argues that Australia should take responsibility not just for its own emissions, but for those it enables worldwide.
That is a different approach to the institutional global response to climate change, led by the Paris Agreement, the pact which aims to restrict global warming to 1.5 degrees, the scientifically-assessed benchmark to avoid catastrophic consequences.
Under the Paris Agreement, signatories are responsible for their in-country emissions only.
Mr Naidoo, a South African former head of Greenpeace and Amnesty International, argues that if countries like Australia profit through selling fossil fuels abroad, they were duty-bound to accept responsibility for the heating it causes.
The Fossil Fuel Treaty is a collection of governments - including 16 countries and more than 120 sub-national organisations like cities - aiming to phase out the fossil fuel use.
The Australian government does not support the initiative, though the ACT and the cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart, among others, do.
"It should be to the embarrassment of Australia, we have two fossil fuel-exporting countries, Timor Leste and Colombia (in support)," Mr Naidoo said.
"These are poor nations who are saying, 'yes we are dependent on fossil fuels right now, but we know there is no way we can save our people in the long run if we do not make the transition'."
Mr Naidoo is in Australia this week as part of Climate Action Week Sydney, a series of events and rallies staged in the shadow of Tropical Cyclone Alfred, the most severe cyclone to race through southeast Queensland in half a century.
Climate Council fellow Wesley Morgan - who himself was caught up in Alfred's fury, sandbagging and evacuating his home in northern NSW - said Australians needed to understand our offshore emissions footprint.
"(Exports) are more than double our emissions from the whole of our domestic economy and so if we are to be doing our share to help with dealing with the climate crisis, we can't just be ignoring our fossil fuel exports," he said.
Both Mr Naidoo and Dr Morgan said a shift to renewables would bring economic benefit.
"It's a dead end for Australia to continue to expand our fossil fuel exports," Dr Morgan said.
"But we could have an oversized impact as a clean energy exporter."
