Some federal MPs wonder what Tony Abbott will say if Barack Obama asks him about the weather during their get-together next week.

Mr Abbott's first meeting as prime minister with the US president comes as the Obama administration announces an ambitious plan to reduce carbon emissions.

It wants power plants to cuts emission levels by 30 per cent of 2005 levels by 2030. The Abbott government is not nearly as enthusiastic, ending funding for a range of clean energy programs and wanting to axe the carbon tax.

Labor backbencher Tim Watts said that could make for an uncomfortable discussion when the two leaders meet at the White House in Washington.

"Tony Abbott will be no doubt very awkward in this conversation with the American president," he told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.

The Greens say Australia is being leapfrogged by the US on the issue.

"Tony Abbott is about to abandon the very policy the rest of the world is now reaching for - a price on pollution," leader Christine Milne said.

Liberal MP Dennis Jensen pointed out that, unlike the government, the US was only now taking direct action. It also showed incentives was a better route to take than an emissions trading scheme or a tax, he said.