Politicians like the language of "natural disasters" as it allows them to claim that the fires are something akin to an "act of God", rather than take any responsibility for the failures of planning and preparation. I imagine Mr Morrison hopes the term "natural disaster" allows him to avoid the real link between climate change and drought, rising temperatures and the subsequent bush fire season that we are now facing.

He hopes that the term "natural disasters" will fool us into thinking that his climate-denying government is in no way responsible for the devastating fires across Australia. It is this ongoing climate change denial that has cost Australians so dearly in recent weeks.

In the last month I have participated in two vastly different but closely related events at where I watched Australia's climate-denial policy play out. In the week before Christmas I flew back from the United Nations climate change conference in Madrid, where I was a negotiator for the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu. Last Thursday I drove with my family back from the Narooma evacuation centre where we had been holed up escaping the fires that have devastated Australia's South Coast.

These events are related. The same political choices that have made Australia an international pariah in climate change negotiations, are now evident in the lack of political support for adequate preparation and planning ahead of the devastating bushfires.

The Morrison government's political decision to undermine effective climate action impacts Australia's reputation internationally, and especially in the Pacific.

Vanuatu, like all Pacific Island nations, emits almost no carbon and yet people are severely impacted by climate change. In Vanuatu the impacts of climate change include more cyclones, like Tropical Cyclone Pam in 2015, and more droughts, which will have severe impacts given that most people are subsistence farmers. In the future people in Vanuatu, as elsewhere in the Pacific, may need to resettle, leading to loss of attachment to place, where ancestral connections have been maintained for thousands of years, as well as languages and culture.

These are the issues people refer to when they speak of climate justice. Is Australia prepared to provide access to finance to compensate countries who are facing the impacts of climate change from carbon emitting countries?

The answer from Australia, the United States, Brazil and other developed countries has historically been no. But Australia went further in recent climate change negotiations. It argued for an exception that no other country was asking for - questionable counting of credits in a way that undermines any credible commitments to reducing carbon emissions.

Just as our leadership has failed to provide adequate climate change action at an international and regional level, the fires also show that they have failed to adequately plan and prepare. Hosted by generous locals and aware of the Herculean efforts of rural firefighters, I think Australians are also becoming increasingly aware of the lack of co-ordinated planning around emergency management - and of the failure of our leadership to meet with our expert fire chiefs when they warned of the impacts of climate change on the bushfire season. We are also critically aware of a leadership that is largely missing in action, in part because of climate-denial paralysis.

The bushfires demonstrate not only the profound lack of Australian political leadership on issues related to climate change, they also demonstrate the huge costs associated with climate change inaction.

There is nothing natural about the disasters we are facing. I refuse to accept that this is the new normal. Future generations deserve better. They deserve beach summers like we remember as children.

We must all require more of our leadership. The costs of climate inaction at home, and across the globe, are too high.