FEDERAL Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has had a meeting with one of the world's best-known climate sceptics, who says climate change is a fabrication that aims to set up a "hideous world government monster''.

Mr Abbott met Scottish peer Christopher Monckton one day after releasing his new climate change policy.

Mr Abbott says he believes climate change is real but the Government has labelled him a denier.

Lord Monckton, who says he was a former adviser to British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is known around the world for his argument that humans are not damaging the climate.

On the same day as his meeting with Mr Abbott, Lord Monckton told a Canberra audience that proponents of climate change wanted to establish a "world government ... that would have shut down democracy worldwide''.

This new government would have policing powers, impose taxes, and "take control over all formerly free markets'', he said to applause from more than 200 people at the National Press Club.

Two Liberal MPs, David Hawker and Alby Schultz, were in the audience.

"You can now make sure that no more money and no more power goes to this hideous world government monster,'' Lord Monckton said.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions would deny electricity and food to starving people and cause millions of deaths, he said, displaying a slide of hungry African children.

"Look into the eyes, the hopeless eyes of these starving children in Africa, and love them enough ... to say to those who would destroy your economy in the name of the chimera that is global warming, enough is enough.''

UN climate talks are proceeding on the basis that the world's poorest countries do not have to adopt any restrictions or caps on their greenhouse gas emissions.

Lord Monckton put the case that the world is not warming, and if it is, greenhouse gas emissions are not to blame.

Temperatures have not risen in recent years and the Arctic iceshelf was not melting, he said.

If temperatures were rising, it could be because of increased solar activity.

Evidence used by climate scientists to say climate change was real was fabricated, distorted and based on faulty computer modelling, Lord Monckton said.

The climate was a complex system that could not be predicted years, or decades, ahead.

He warned of the dangers if good science was ignored, saying the 25 million deaths from HIV/AIDS could have been avoided if those afflicted had been locked away from the start.

"The correct response would have been to test and identify all (HIV) carriers, and then isolate them immediately ... and permanently.''

A spokesman for Lord Monckton said he met Mr Abbott in Parliament House and the pair discussed the Opposition's new climate policy.

Asked about Lord Monckton before the meeting, Mr Abbott said it was his job to meet with "everyone who has a significant argument to put''.

"I'm not an intellectual snob. I'm prepared to meet with people who agree with me, who disagree with me,'' he said.

Lord Monckton is on a three-week speaking tour of Australia; he has been speaking to full houses.

The $115,000 cost has been picked up by two retirees, scientist Case Smit and engineer John Smeed.



Originally published as Abbott meets lord of the climate sceptics