The green climate fund will be part of any international emissions reduction deal in Paris next year, the French president said in Canberra on Wednesday.

Tony Abbott, standing alongside François Hollande as he made the announcement, has said Australia will not be contributing to the fund.

The prime minister has committed only to considering further climate policies “in the coming months”.

The fund promises money to help the poorest countries with climate adaptation and mitigation and is seen as vital to winning their backing for a new global deal. Abbott again pointed to Australia’s domestic $2.5bn emissions reduction fund and the $10bn clean energy finance corporation, which he is trying to abolish, as examples of what Australia is already doing.

“We will be considering our position in terms of targets, in terms of contributions to various funds in coming months. But when it comes to funds, let me just make this observation,” the prime minister said.

“We’ve just passed a law in our parliament to establish a $2.55bn fund over the next four years to purchase abatement. So, this is a very significant fiscal contribution to the task of global emissions reduction.

“We’ve also got the clean energy finance corporation, a $10bn institution which is in the business of funding various projects which have economic and environmental outcomes.

“Finally, a significant part of our aid contribution, our overseas aid, particularly in the Pacific, is climate mitigation. So, Australia is doing a lot and obviously we’ll consider what more we can do in the weeks and months ahead.”

Abbott said it was “very important that we don’t have another disaster like [the 2009 climate conference] in Copenhagen. For Paris to be a success, we “can’t pursue environmental improvements at the expense of economic progress”, he said.

Hollande stressed the importance of the green climate fund to the negotiations before Paris and for countries to bring forward their new emissions reduction pledges well ahead of the meeting, late next year.

The green fund contributions already announced (which include a $3bn pledge by the US and a $1.5bn pledge by Japan revealed during the G20 summit) “show very clearly that if we want the emerging countries and the more fragile countries to participate in this global growth, we have to ... support them,” Hollande said.

He said the new deal had to be “legally binding, and it has to … have some sort of link with the green fund”.

Abbott said it was “good to hear Francois talking about a binding agreement coming out of Paris. What’s important is that the agreement is strong and effective and that the targets are met. That’s the point – targets have to be met and when it comes to [the Kyoto protocols] Australia more than met its reductions targets, and that can’t be said of other countries.”

Australia did exceed its Kyoto targets – after negotiating an extremely generous deal at that meeting. Australia was one of only two countries allowed to increase its emissions by the Kyoto target year of 2012. Australian emissions were allowed to climb 8% compared with a 1990 baseline and Australia also negotiated a deal to include land use emissions, which credited a steep reduction in land clearing in Queensland that had already occurred when the deal was done. The Abbott government insists its Direct Action fund will be able to meet the next target - a 5% cut by 2020 – although analysts believe this will be difficult.

Canada – one of the few countries previously in line with Australia’s opposition to the green climate fund – now appears to have changed its mind, with Abbott’s close friend prime minister Stephen Harper telling journalists at the G20 he was preparing to make a contribution.

Last November, Abbott and Harper “made history” by jointly dissenting from support for the fund in a communique from the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.

After his meeting with Hollande Abbott also said Australia would move quickly to negotiate a free trade agreement with the European Union, saying the agreements clinched with Japan, South Korea and China showed Australia was “capable of moving quickly ... more quickly than people might think.”

The two leaders also discussed how to deal with citizens leaving to fight in Iraq and Syria.