Tanya Plibersek has asserted Australia working with China co-operatively on climate change would be in everybody's interest.
As world leaders and delegates gather for the COP27 climate summit in Cairo, the federal environment minister said issues such as climate change were too big for any one country to tackle individually.
While uncertainty surrounds whether Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit later this week, Ms Plibersek said talks with China on the issue would be a significant step forward.
"Wherever we can, it is in our interests for China to be part of the international community and on issues like the Pacific and climate change, if we can work co-operatively, of course that's in everybody's interests," she told Sky News on Sunday.
"Issues like climate change are obviously too big for any one country to solve on their own ... China emits about a third of the world's greenhouse gases and so we do need to work in a way that brings these very larger emitters into the tent."
Mr Albanese is not attending the climate summit, instead flying out to the East Asia Summit, ASEAN and the G20 in Asia.
Australia is being represented at the annual climate talks by Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen.
Talk at the summit has been dominated by possible loss and damages compensation for countries that have been impacted by climate change.
Ms Plibersek said Australia supported discussions on the issue.
"Of course Australia supports having a discussion about how we help countries that have been really badly impacted by climate change cope with those impacts," she said.
"Nobody's talking about committing money at this meeting, that might be a discussion for future meetings."
Ahead of the summit, Australia signed up to a global pledge to help reduce methane emissions.
More than 120 other countries have signed up to the initiative.
However, opposition infrastructure spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie said the coalition had concerns about the pledge.
"We know that's going to have a significant impact over time on agriculture," she told Sky News.
"At the very point we need to be increasing supply domestically, particularly of gas going forward, to actually have a pledge that will restrict the ongoing development of those projects, I think, is very much a concern."
