By Poppy Johnston in Canberra

The Nationals have unanimously agreed to abandon formal climate targets at a party room meeting, setting up a potential fight with their coalition partner the Liberals.

The regional party has walked away from its previous commitment to net zero emissions by 2050, a long-held goal of Australian governments from both sides of politics.

Instead, Nationals Leader David Littleproud says the country’s greenhouse gas emissions should be tied to an average of similar countries within the OECD.

“When you’re only a bit over one per cent of total global emissions, you can hardly mitigate the world’s emissions,” he told reporters after the meeting.

MPs were briefed on a report from the Page Research Centre which makes dozens of recommendations, including allowing government subsidies for coal power stations and repealing Australia’s Climate Change Act.

Mr Littleproud said not all of the policy suggestions had been adopted and his colleagues had more work to do.

On Saturday, Nationals members attending the party’s federal council  voted to ditch net zero by 2050 from their official platform.

The Nationals’ coalition partner, the Liberals, are yet to finalise their climate and energy policies.

The regional party’s decision to walk away from formal emissions targets is likely to anger some moderate Liberals who want to remain committed to net zero by 2050.

Liberal leader Sussan Ley has said she does not want to pursue net zero at any cost but party sources say there is broad agreement internally that Australia must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in some way.

Under the Paris Agreement, signed a decade ago, Australia and other member states must increase their emissions reduction targets every five years and cannot water them down.

The Labor government is committed to net zero by 2050 and is chasing an interim target of 62 per cent to 70 per cent emissions cuts by 2035.

A target of 82 per cent of electricity sourced from renewables by 2030 is key to meeting its climate goals.

Households, the economy and the environment will all be hit hard by unchecked climate change, Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment revealed in September.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the internal debate within the coalition as a “circus”, and said Australia was particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“It is in our national interest for there to be action to reduce our emissions and to act on climate change,” he told Sky News.