Australia still has not learned not to make jokes about the impacts of climate change on its low-lying neighbours, Marshall Islands minister says at Paris talks

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Australia still hasn’t learned not to make jokes about low-lying islands and climate change, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands has said, referring to foreign minister Julie Bishop’s mocking comments last week about claims that one of the Marshall Islands was already submerged.



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Bishop arrives in Paris on Sunday to lead Australia’s negotiating effort for the final week of the summit and Tony de Brum said he would need to have an exchange to “sort out” the issue with her.

“Australia has still not learned they should not mess with the islands and make jokes about the islands and climate change,” de Brum told journalists.

Bishop mocked her Labor counterpart, Tanya Plibersek, in parliament last week for claiming the island of Eneko had “disappeared” due to rising sea levels when in fact it was a “beautiful and accessible beach getaway”.

“You can rent a bungalow for $50 a night. It is in good condition, we’re told. There are houses, lawns, gardens, there is a toilet block and there are picnic tables,” Bishop said.

It subsequently emerged that Plibersek’s transcript had misnamed the island, and that she had been referring to a different island, called Anebok, which had disappeared.

“The spelling of Anebok and Eneko is very close and the Australians haven’t spoken English for years and probably don’t know how to pronounce those names properly because that is what the whole section was about,” de Brum said.

“One island has disappeared, we didn’t go to that island because it is disappeared. We went to where it used to be, took pictures and went to the other island where the press conference was broadcast from the Marshalls. So I am sure when Minister Bishop arrives tomorrow we will have a chance to sort that out.”

The US president, Barack Obama, recognised the importance and special concerns of the low lying states in a meeting on the sidelines of the Paris conference on Tuesday with leaders from Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, St Lucia, Barbados and Papua New Guinea.

Speaking after the meeting, Obama described himself as “an island boy”, referring to his childhood on Hawaii, and urged the conference to listen to their concerns.

“Their population are amongst the most vulnerable to the ravages of climate change ... Some of their nations could disappear entirely and as weather patterns change, we might deal with tens of millions of climate refugees in the Asia Pacific region,” he said.

He said Paris summit must “serve the interests of the most vulnerable” as well as the most powerful.

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Australia has backed the island states’ demands that the Paris agreement include a call for global warming to be limited to 1.5 degrees, in line with the latest science, as well as its overall 2 degrees goal. In fact the commitments made by all countries in Paris would result in warming of at least 2.7 degrees, if all countries do what they are promising.

The agreement is seeking to institute regular reviews to try to increase the ambition of national commitments over time.

Speaking to Guardian Australia in Paris earlier in the week, the opposition leader, Bill Shorten, accused Bishop of having a “Peter Dutton moment” – a reference to the immigration minister’s joke – picked up on a boom mic – about rising sea levels in the Pacific.

“Her comments makes Australia look stupid. The Pacific islands see Australia as a big brother and Julie Bishop is treating their concerns as a political football,” he said.