Australia will burn through its "fair share" of carbon within six years if the more-ambitious end of the global warming goals agreed to at the Paris climate summit is to be achieved, a respected European think-tank says.

Restricting warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times implies a global carbon budget of less than 250 billion tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent from 2015, the Stockholm Environment Institute said in a new study. The planet has warmed about 1 degree in the past century alone.

Taking Australia's share of this budget to be 1 per cent – arguably a generous measure as the nation makes up just 0.3 per cent of the world's population – the country will emit that 2.5 billion-tonne portion within six years at present polluting rates.

"[Australia's] transformation to a post-carbon era must be rapid and comprehensive, and include diversification away from fossil extraction for energy and export," Sivan Kartha, the author of the report, said.