Australia is the worst-performing developed nation when it comes to climate-change action, with the Abbott government's scrapping of the carbon price cementing its lowly ranking, a survey by European non-government organisations shows.

Australia ranked 57 out of 58 nations reviewed by the survey, which has been done each year since 2005 by Climate Action Network Europe and Germanwatch. Only Saudi Arabia fared worse.

The ranking is based on indicators ranging from carbon dioxide emissions per capita to share of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Australians emitted about 16.7 tonnes of CO2 per person in 2012.

On Agua Dulce beach in Lima, native Peruvian activists formed an indigenous symbol and the words 'People and rights. Alive woods' to call attention to climate change. Photo: AFP

"While the developed world is going in one direction, Australia is going in the opposite," said Guy Ragen, a climate change campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, which helped compile the findings.

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Mr Ragen, who was formally an adviser to Labor's Climate Change Minister Greg Combet, said Australia's relatively modest emissions reduction goals and high per capita pollution made the country a poor performer even before the carbon price was scrapped in July.

That move caused Australia's policy rating to slump 21 places in the latest survey.

The government has also been attempting to win Senate support to cut the Renewable Energy Target, set at 41 terawatt-hours a year by 2020.

"You'll have to assume [the policy rating] will get worse," Mr Ragen said.

The introduction of the carbon price had led to a reduction of emissions from the power sector, a process being reversed now. Pitt & Sherry, an energy consultancy, estimated last week the rise in emissions from the electricity industry since the end of the carbon prices would lift the nation's CO2 pollution level by 1.4 per cent if the increase was to continue for a year.

Illustration: Ron Tandberg.

The report's release comes as key talks take place in Lima, Peru, on getting a climate treaty finalised by late next year.  Australia will be represented during this week's high-level section of the talks by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Trade Minister Andrew Robb.

Fairfax Media sought comment from Environment Minister Greg Hunt, who was not sent to the Lima talks.

Because emission indicators account for about 80 per cent of the evaluation, Australia has tended to be among the laggards on the survey. The introduction of the carbon tax in 2012 only resulted in Australia's ranking improve to 50^th among the nations.

 Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom are the top-ranked nations in the survey. Australia and Saudi Arabia share the bottom four slots with Canada and Kazakhstan.