Former prime minister Tony Abbott has made a last-ditch bid to derail the Coalition's plan for a National Energy Guarantee.

Mr Abbott accused the Government of developing an emissions "obsession" and pushed for it to abandon the Paris agreement signed when he was in office.

Coalition MPs will discuss the NEG at a party room meeting tomorrow, after Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg met with his state counterparts on Friday.

Business groups and industry groups have urged the Coalition to back the plan, saying it would lower power prices and improve reliability.

Mr Abbott said today he disagreed with those groups lobbying on behalf of business.

"The business groups are being polite, they're being polite to the Government because they appreciate that Labor would be even worse," he said.

As prime minister, Mr Abbott signed up to the Paris agreement that set emissions reductions targets including for Australia.

But he now argues Australia should "get out of Paris".

Abbott borrows Howard's speech to make his point
Mr Abbott won the 2013 election after campaigning on a frequently repeated slogan about axing the carbon tax, and his government subsequently scrapped the carbon price.

Since then, Malcolm Turnbull won the 2016 election, but Mr Abbott is attacking the NEG by skipping that campaign and referring to his own election three years earlier.

"It's a bit sad that a government that was elected promising to end Labor's emissions obsession, to abolish the carbon tax, now seems to be developing emissions obsessions of its own," he said.

Mr Abbott then reached back nearly two decades to refer to a campaign speech John Howard gave as prime minister in 2001, when he famously said: "We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."

Mr Howard was referring to asylum seekers arriving by boat, but Mr Abbott today adopted the phrase to cover his concerns about the NEG.

"This is why it's so important to get out of Paris, to say that we will control what happens in this country and the circumstances under which it happens," Mr Abbott said.

Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has also criticised the Paris agreement.

"People in the Kmart, people in the local pub, they don't care about the Paris agreement, it means nothing to them, it has no purpose," he said.

Mr Joyce and Mr Abbott are both signalling they could cross the floor to vote against the NEG when legislation comes into the Parliament.