Mr Costello made the comments while visiting Damascus College's Energy Breakthrough team yesterday.

The team's RodeRAGE project saw college students and staff ride a solar-powered vehicle from Sydney to Ballarat in about one day in March.

The initiative was designed to raise awareness about reducing greenhouse emissions and raise funds for anti-poverty projects.

"One of the major things that fuels global warming is poverty," Mr Costello said.

"India and China won't sign up to a post-2012 (greenhouse emissions) agreement unless they can also deal with their poverty.

"They say you benefited the most from the carbon that's put up there. Now that it is desperate you want us to stop and our hungry to keep going hungry."

He said a global warming-versus-poverty debate should be avoided in favour of dealing with poverty as part of an anti-global warming strategy.

Energy Breakthrough team spokesman Tony Davidson said after years of successfully racing solar powered vehicles, the RodeRAGE event was about helping others.

"This was to raise awareness about how every day people could reduce their greenhouse emissions and to raise funds for people in third world countries," he said.

Some of the funds raised from the project went to World Vision's Smiles project, which gives gifts such as animals or water wells to individuals or communities living in poverty.