A research fellow from the University of Oxford is puzzled why Australia is too reluctant to assume leadership position in the global campaign for modifying governments' climate change policies.

Economist and leading climate change advocate Cameron Hepburn said on Monday that the county would lose nothing in taking a leadership role in global carbon emission efforts as he warned that Australia may be too far behind now that it risks languishing at the cellar of international initiatives to address air pollution.

Speaking at the NSW Minerals Council conference held in Wollongong, Dr Hepburn said that prominent member of the G20 nations have already instituted solid measures to address climate change, specifically pointing to India and China as leading the global initiatives.

He said that China showed its intent in pitching in its part by declaring that its government is serious enough in introducing an emissions trading scheme within the next five years while India has recently enacted a carbon in July.

Dr Hepburn said that Australia must take the lead now and impose a price on carbon very soon should it hope to be on top of the global campaign against carbon emissions, and stay competitive in the process.

He noted that policies that are delayed unnecessarily could exact further costs on the federal efforts to reduce carbon emissions, cautioning that "if we don't price carbon soon we will be forced to do it at some point, in a way we don't like very much."

Dr Hepburn stressed that it is in the interest of the mining industry to adapt to the reality of a moderate and stable carbon prices in the near future, predicting at the same time that the world is poised to witness a dwindling cost of renewable energy, most notably power being delivered by solar-drawn sources.

The climate change economist pointed to the plummeting rate of renewable energy cost "that we'll see it reach parity with carbon-intensive sources within the next decade."