Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is not backing away from his plan to introduce a carbon emissions trading scheme, saying there has been too much time-wasting on climate change.

"The call of the international community and the call of the people of Australia is to get on with it," he told reporters.

Mr Rudd was speaking as federal coalition MPs and senators were meeting to thrash out the opposition's climate change policy.

They are discussing maintaining a pre-election stance to back carbon trading from 2012 - two years later than the Rudd government model - but with a very soft start until big emitters, such as China and India, agree to reductions.

Mr Rudd said the opposition was prevaricating.

"(They) have been engaged in short-term politics which have got more to do with their own internal party debates than the long-term interests of Australia," he said.

The government would make a decision on the trajectory of carbon reduction targets later this year, when it released its white paper on emissions trading, Mr Rudd said.

He admitted emissions trading would bring pain.

"I accept fully this will be tough, and there will be pain along the way, I accept that, I'm not going to back away from it."

Mr Rudd rejected opposition suggestions the collapse of world trade talks overnight was a sign that international agreement on climate change would be too hard.

An automatic connection could not be drawn between the two issues, he said.

"I think we have had a huge, huge setback in terms of the political will of the governments of the world to act in concert for what is plainly in the global economic good, which is to expand free trade across the world".

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