Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee believes the ACT can lead the world in climate action – and she’ll fly to COP26 in Glasgow this weekend to (she says) show off what the ACT can do and bring back ideas that will make it even better.

Meanwhile, local Green and Labor politicians – perhaps annoyed at seeing a Liberal speak about global warming on the world stage while Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s climate plan draws international criticism – have accused Ms Lee of being a climate sceptic.

“There’s no doubt about the science around climate change,” Ms Lee said. “We know that we must take action now, and, of course, into the future, because we all want to leave our planet just as beautiful for the next generation, and we all need to work together on this.”

Ms Lee will attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference as a delegate of the Coalition for Conservation, an environmentalist forum for conservatives who support decarbonization.

Ms Lee will speak on the UN Globe COP26 Legislators Summit closing panel on how policy makers must accelerate momentum on climate action. She will also speak at the Youth Environment Summit in Edinburgh on the importance of young voices on climate, and tour green ports and wind turbines.

Climate is often considered a left-wing issue, and several prominent Federal Coalition politicians are climate sceptics, but Ms Lee believes centre-right political voices should feature heavily in this debate.

“It is also our planet; it is also our environment; and it is not an issue that we should play political football with,” Ms Lee said.

The Liberal politician believes the ACT – “already doing a great job in taking strong action on climate change” – can be a world leader in reducing carbon emissions and sustainable technology.

“We need to constantly look at new ways to reduce the ACT’s carbon footprint, as well as investing in sustainable, reliable, renewable energy sources that will keep the cost of energy low,” Ms Lee said.

She said she was proud all three ACT parties had committed to net zero emissions by 2045 – “an ambitious target” – and that the Territory achieved 100 per cent renewable electricity last year.

“The ACT Government is small, but doing some great stuff in this space,” she said.

The next phase, Ms Lee predicted, would be more challenging.

In Glasgow, she wanted to show world leaders what the ACT Government had achieved so far, and bring back ideas, emerging technologies, and world-leading approaches that would benefit the ACT.

“Learning from experts at the forefront of their fields from around the world is an incredible opportunity for the ACT to learn how we can tackle that next challenge moving forwards,” Ms Lee said.

She had asked Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Greens leader Shane Rattenbury their advice. According to Ms Lee, Mr Rattenbury “warmly welcomed” her attendance, and would provide information and updates in relation to what the ACT wanted to get out of discussions at COP26.

“This is a great opportunity for Ms Lee, and I hope she takes a large notebook, because the Canberra Liberals have a yawning gap in their current response to climate change,” Mr Rattenbury said.

The Greens politician said that although Ms Lee had been Canberra Liberals spokeswoman on climate action for five years, her party did not have a climate policy at the last election, and had still not outlined their agenda to help cut Canberra’s emissions.

The Canberra Liberals, Ms Lee promised on Tuesday, would take a climate agenda to the next election. The Liberals, she said, were committed to preserving and conserving the local environment, and taking serious and real action on climate change and reducing emissions.

“There is no doubt in my mind that I have the full backing of my party group to continue the work that we have already done to show our ongoing commitment to taking strong action on climate change,” Ms Lee said.

Earlier this year, the Greens made sport of Ms Lee and other Liberal MLAs when they attended a Young Liberals event where a piece of Adani coal was auctioned for $2,600. Ms Lee maintained that the incident was not foreshadowed or advertised.

“None of the MLAs were aware of what items were for auction,” she said. “And the Canberra Liberals’ actions, commitments, and promises in relation to climate change speak for itself, on our commitment to taking strong action on reducing our emissions.”

Mr Rattenbury also suggested that Ms Lee had sounded “disturbingly” like a climate change sceptic in the past.

In 2019, he pointed out, Ms Lee said it was “unfortunate that too much too much discussion on climate is based on fiction or misplaced ideology by extremists ranging from climate change alarmists to climate change deniers” (a sound bite also shared by Labor MLA Suzanne Orr on Facebook). “This sort of dialogue simply polarises people and prevents sensible, reasoned debate,” she said.

In that speech, Ms Lee suggested that not all climate change was due to human activity. “In the history of the planet, climate has always been changing, and we, in our very short time on earth in geological terms, need to be aware of what we experience and what we contribute to weather patterns and put that in context.”

Ms Lee had also criticized the Greens’ “panic and alarmist policies” to stop all coal mining now, shut down all coal-fired power stations, remove all fuelled cars and trucks, and stop livestock farming. It was “not a plan for climate survival” but “for economic ruin on a large scale”.

“Hopefully COP will help her change this perspective,” Mr Rattenbury said on Tuesday.

But in her 2019 speech, Ms Lee also said preparing for climate change was critical: building dams, conserving water, developing sustainable farming methods, reducing reliance on energy, investing in renewable energy, better and more sustainable housing, planting trees, and reducing emissions from transport. “We can become more conscious of our own footprint on the planet.”

In Ms Lee’s view, she said on Tuesday, we need to take responsibility for man-produced global warming, and listen to different, emerging views from experts and scientists around the world.

Ms Lee made no comment on Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s net zero by 2050 climate plan, criticised by Australian academics, activists, and Opposition politicians, and by luminaries from David Attenborough and the UK’s climate change adviser for (in the words of a Conversation article) “involving no increase to Australia’s 2030 climate target, no new funding or policies and few concrete details of how reductions will be achieved – except a heavy reliance on technological solutions not yet invented”.

Mr Rattenbury acknowledged that Ms Lee “will not be drawn into critiquing” the Prime Minister’s plan, but thought it would be “a shame and a waste of a plane ticket” if Ms Lee returned to Canberra with no thoughts on it.

Mr Barr said: “If the Canberra Liberals were serious about responsible climate action, then her paid trip is an opportunity to secure a more ambitious set of commitments from the Prime Minister. At the very least, this should equate to the aggregated emission targets of states and territories.”