Climate change too big for partisan politics, Rudd says

Federal Labor Leader Kevin Rudd says it is time to leave partisan politics out of the climate change debate.

Mr Rudd was addressing an ALP-organised climate change summit in Canberra, bringing together business leaders, politicians and conservationists.

He says the issue must be approached on a basis of consensus.

"Because the dimensions of this challenge are so great and they reach so far and ... cross so many of the traditional portfolio delineation within government and between governments we should be at a stage now in this country where climate change is beyond politics," he said.

Mr Rudd says climate change represents a major market failure and governments must intervene to tackle the problem.

He says the summit is designed to inform the Labor policy he will take to the next election.

I'm not expecting to produce a grand Canberra declaration on climate change," he said.

"Nor am I expecting any bold set of breathtaking policy initiatives to be whacked out in a press release at 3 o'clock this afternoon - that's not the intention either.

"My intention is this - to harness the best brains and taken available in the country to get our response and the nation's response to climate change as right as possible."

The environmental policy adviser to mining company Rio Tinto, Tom Burke, says while industry must act to address global warming, climate change is essentially a political problem.

"Bad as it is, climate change is a problem that is well within the envelope of our technical and economic competence to solve," he said.

"If we fail to solve it, it will be because we failed to muster the political will to apply the knowledge and resources we have to tackle the problem.

"That will be a moral failure on a scale unmatched in history."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister John Howard has moved to make climate change a key topic at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting later this year.

Mr Howard has written to the leaders of the 20 APEC members, telling them clean development and climate change will be a major focus at the meeting in Sydney.