The shadow climate change minister, Mark Butler, has warned the development of the Galilee basin is not in Australia’s national interest, because it would displace mining and jobs in existing coal regions, and would not help the world meet its obligations under the Paris climate agreement.

Butler has used a speech to the Sydney Institute to argue the controversial Adani coal project is “utterly exceptional” because it is the only significant export-oriented greenfields mine opening up “on the face of the planet”.

He said developing the Carmichael mine would fly in the face of current market trends, where export volumes for thermal coal had been flat for several years, and would also be inconsistent with the International Energy Agency’s advice “on what the world needs to do … to keep global warming well below two degrees”.

Butler said it was possible the Adani project “might notionally go ahead if the Turnbull government finds some way of throwing a heap of taxpayer money at it” but he argues the industry is clear Adani would have a zero sum effect, displacing “coal and jobs in existing coal regions, like the Hunter Valley”.

“For the life of me, I can’t see how that prospect is in the national interest.”

Butler’s Sydney Institute speech on Monday night addressed broad-ranging questions associated with managing climate change-related financial risk – including the impact of climate change on balance sheets, on the insurance industry and the potential for future litigation to “recover damages for losses incurred as a result of climate change from people who should have prevented those losses from occurring”.

But his public intervention comes at a time when federal Labor is mulling specific policy options on the Adani project. The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has been signalling since late January that the ALP is inclined to toughen its stance on the Adani project.

While parliamentarians in Canberra have been telegraphing a shift, last week the powerful mining union said that adopting a hardline stance on Adani would damage Labor’s political fortunes in Queensland and also trigger a divisive debate within the ALP about the future of coal.

Shorten will spend the week in marginal Queensland coastal electorates, highlighting local infrastructure commitments and what he characterised on Monday as “real blue-collar jobs” and the next “pipeline of work”.

Before Butler’s speech on Monday evening, Shorten told reporters in Townsville there was a role for mining in Australia, and “there is a role for coal in Australia, and he echoed CFMEU national president Tony Maher’s description of Adani last week as just “another project”.

Labor’s positioning on Adani is under way as a critical byelection looms in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. The 17 March contest in Batman is a head-to-head between Labor and the Greens. The Greens have been running an anti-Adani campaign against Labor within the Batman boundaries for months, amplified by activist groups.

Butler has been pushing for federal Labor to adopt a tougher line on the Adani project for the best part of 12 months. In an interview last June with Guardian Australia’s politics live podcast, he declared it would “not be a positive thing for Australia for the Adani mine to go ahead”.

He dug in behind those arguments on Monday night. “In all of the many discussions I’ve had over recent years with different interests about the Galilee basin projects, a consensus view has been put that they are simply not financially viable – that the cost of developing the new mines cannot be recouped from a declining market with a thermal coal price projected to be in the doldrums for years.”

Butler acknowledged that jobs was a major political issue in Queensland. “There’s clearly a great deal of frustration in Queensland about the constant delays and debate about the Adani project, and whether the promised jobs will ever really happen,” he said.

“In a region that’s been hit hard by the end of the mining boom, job opportunities are crucially important.”

Butler said Shorten was not willing “to wait on Adani’s continual delays with this project – delays that will likely come to nought anyway”.

“He’s busy talking to the Queensland government and local communities about other job plans,” Butler said. “And he’s putting concrete announcements before the people of central and north Queensland as we speak – jobs that we guarantee will happen.”

On the more broadranging topic of managing climate change risk, Butler used the speech to warn that “one-eyed reliance on scenarios that pretend that the world is not changing is simply unsustainable and, potentially, legally negligent”.

“Investors are already voicing their expectations that companies do better in this area. But government and regulators clearly have a role to play in improving standards as well.”