Environmentalists are targeting Nationals over climate change, unveiling modelling projections that show their electorates overwhelmingly are most at risk of suffering steep temperature rises, amid demands from backbenchers for taxpayers to underwrite new coal-fired power stations.

While climate change is often derided politically as an inner-city obsession, the analysis, commissioned by the Australian Conservation Foundation, reveals Nationals MPs represent eight of the 20 electorates projected to have the largest increase in average maximum temperatures, including five of the top six.