Energy security does not mean lower emissions, experts say.

But with good planning, the dual benefits can be achieved.

Researchers have reviewed worldwide data on energy trading, emissions and climate policies to find that attempts to combat climate change usually lead to lower energy imports.

But the ink does not work both ways, with policies aiming to lower energy imports creating only slight cuts in greenhouse gases.

The analysis of the links between energy security and climate change policies has been published this week in the journal Nature Energy.

It used state-of-the-art global energy-economy models to find that combating climate change will lead to lower energy imports, but that ensuring energy independence will lead to only modest (2 to 15 per cent) cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

The study also shows that constraining energy imports would cut fossil fuel use and energy demand, but may not universally increase the use of renewables.

Finally, the authors show that energy independence could be achieved at a comparable cost to meeting existing emissions reductions pledges, but at a fraction of the cost of limiting global warming to 2 °C.

They conclude that more careful analysis of the relative costs of different policy objectives is required when the likely co-benefits of climate policies are discussed.