A decade after the defeat of the Rudd government's carbon pollution reduction scheme, Labor has dramatically escalated attacks on the Greens, blaming the minor party for 218 million additional tonnes of carbon pollution since 2010.

Risking exposing Labor to attack over its current absence of a climate change policy, Opposition figures including leader Anthony Albanese, foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong and assistant minister Pat Conroy have used Monday's anniversary of the parliamentary defeat to argue Australia’s 2020 emissions would have been as much as 81 million tonnes lower than what is now projected, had the scheme been made law.