Tony Abbott is risking the future of Australia's Pacific island neighbours by "burying his head in the sand" over climate change, according to Tony de Brum, the minister assisting the president of the Marshall Islands.

De Brum told Guardian Australia that the Marshall Islands and other Pacific nations had been "very disappointed" with the new Coalition government's decision to scrap carbon pricing and abolish bodies such as the Climate Commission. On Wednesday, Abbott said that Christiana Figueres, the UN's climate change chief, was "talking through her hat" for linking bushfires currently raging in New South Wales to climate change.

"Climate change is real, as I've often said, and we should take strong action against it," Abbott told 3AW. "But these fires are certainly not a function of climate change – they're just a function of life in Australia."

De Brum said Abbott's dismissal of Figueres' views was "not a mature way" to approach the subject of climate change.

"I've known Christiana Figueres for a long time and I have nothing but respect for her," he said. "We can't draw a direct line from the fires to climate change, but the science is out there. "We know that climate change makes these events more frequent and more severe. At the moment in the Pacific we have four typhoons forming. It happens and it's cyclone season, but not at quite at the frequency of recent times. Anyone who thinks Christiana is talking through her hat is burying their heads in the sand." De Brum said the Marshall Islands, potentially alongside other nations such as Kiribati and Vanuatu, will be approaching the Australian government to register dismay at what they see as a lack of leadership on climate change. Low-lying island nations, such as those in the Pacific, are considered particularly vulnerable to climate change due to the potentially devastating impact of sea level rises. New Zealand's high court is currently hearing an appeal from a man from Kiribati who is seeking asylum based on the risks posed to his life by climate change. "Tony Abbott must listen to the scientists and not play politics with the survival of Australia's friends in the region," de Brum said. "We expect a lot more of our big brother in the south and we hope Australia will tone down the rhetoric on this issue, especially being president of the Security Council. We need Australia to show leadership on this issue as it's life or death for us. "Australia needs to get real. Scrapping a carbon price goes completely against the grain of what the world is doing. It looks like three billion people will be living under a carbon price worldwide by 2020. We need Australia to be a leader in that process, not a laggard," he said.