THE President of what could be the first country in the world lost to climate change has urged Australia to prepare for a mass wave of climate refugees seeking a new place to live.

The Maldivian President, Mohamed Nasheed, said his government was considering Australia as a possible new home if the tiny archipelago disappears beneath rising seas.

Threat ... much of the Maldives could be lost to climate change.

''It is increasingly becoming difficult to sustain the islands, in the natural manner that these islands have been,'' he told the Herald in an interview in Male, the Maldives capital.

''So … if everyone else around Australia is so poor and unable to fend for themselves and have a decent life, would that necessarily make life in Australia any better? Would that be the castle that you can defend?''