The announcement came as some of the world's biggest oilers have signed up to advise governments on climate change, and Total said it was planning a $US500 million ($713 million) per annum investment in renewable energy.

AGL, which is one of Australia's worst polluters, this morning committed to a number of commitments under the We Mean Business Coalition.

The Carbon Disclosure Project-led initiative works with businesses that recognise that the transition to a low carbon economy is the only way to secure sustainable economic growth and prosperity.

AGL has pledged to undertake responsible corporate engagement on climate policy, report climate change information in mainstream corporate reports, and aligning itself with the UN Global Compact's business leadership criteria on carbon pricing.

Managing director Andy Vesey said that adopting these commitments demonstrates AGL's "ongoing dedication to constructive, transparent and inclusive engagement on the challenges of climate change".

He said the company wanted to take a leadership position in making that transformation.

"The Commonwealth government has made a commitment to work towards a global agreement that limits global warming to less than two degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels," he said.

It will be a big challenge for AGL, which produces 88% of its energy by burning fossil fuels.

Total's $US500 million per annum plan, meanwhile, aims to position Europe's second-largest oil and gas company to take "advantage of fast growing renewable market" to build a profitable business.

While already the owner of one of the biggest US solar panel manufacturers, the $US500 million commitment is a faction of Total's overall investment of $US24 billion this year.

Representatives from major energy companies including heavyweights Shell, BHP Billiton Germany's RWE and Norway's Statoil, as well as GE and Dow Chemicals, have joined forces to advise on making cleaner energy decisions, the latest push by energy firms to become more pro-active on climate issues.

Shell chairman Chad Holliday, Statoil vice president Bjorn Otto Sverdrup and RWE CEO Peter Terium are among a list of commissioners acting in a personal capacity to advise governments on how to change their energy markets without damaging the environment.

"It is inherently difficult to change from proven development paths to something more fundamentally uncertain, but change we must," the group, calling itself the Energy Transitions Commission, said in launch documents seen by wire service Reuters.

The group aims to help decision-makers in making informed choices by providing research and encouraging debate, detailing an orderly shift to a low-carbon future which keeps the world economy on track while cutting carbon emissions.

Green groups have already criticised the ETC, saying Shell has offered a skewed vision of the world's energy future, believing its target of renewables being juts 25% of the global energy mix in 2050 is out of pace with the way of the world.

Even coal-dominated China has signalled that renewable energy will reach about this level in its own energy mix by 2030.

The ETC is expected to reiterate its call for a global carbon price, which will hurt coal the coal industry more than the oil and gas production patch.

The commission will be formally launched at an event in Texas on Monday.

It comes just weeks after some of Australia's biggest companies signed a communique supporting efforts to tackle climate change at the COP21 conference in Paris later this year.

It looks like big oil sees its future before it, and wants to show the world the way to a fossil free 21st Century.

The establishment of the ETC comes at a curious time, with Shell, which was until recently a member of a climate change denialist group, drilling in the Arctic, where record seasonal losses of Arctic sea ice increasingly open up new navigable sea lanes and drilling locations in areas where one quarter of the world's oil could be reservoired.

Climate scientists argue the reserves need to be left in the ground.

Climate change will add an extra $US43 trillion of cost to the global economy by the end of the next century, a recent scientific study by Cambridge University and the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre recently calculated.

Researchers warn that the sea ice melt is encouraging methane emissions, with oceans absorbing more head, exacerbating atmospheric warming.

Companies such as Total and AGL are also attempting to rehabilitate their image.