Island nations urge Turnbull to echo Obama's climate change leadership

Marshall Islands foreign minister says he hopes Australia might soon start to take islanders' fears of climate change as seriously as the US president

Malcolm Turnbull has been urged to show the same interest in the impact of climate change on low lying island island states as Barack Obama and to return Australia "to its former leadership role in the Pacific."

Speaking after foreign minister Julie Bishop ridiculed a Labor claim that one of the Marshall Islands had disappeared into the sea, Marshall Island's foreign minister Tony de Brum told Guardian Australia he was hoping Australia might soon start to take the countries' fears about the impact of climate change as seriously as the US president did.