Asia-Pacific leaders will once again butt heads over climate change this week as Australia apparently resists a push by Japan to link natural disasters and climate change.
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Japan is among 31 Asia Pacific countries in Canberra this week at the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum, where it has tabled a draft resolution on climate change.
![Prime Minister Scott Morrison announcing funding for his new bushfire recovery agency in Canberra last week. Picture: Karleen Minney Prime Minister Scott Morrison announcing funding for his new bushfire recovery agency in Canberra last week. Picture: Karleen Minney](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc78q4m4j1djd1h44v88wr.jpg/r0_545_5331_3554_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Australia has tabled its own version, which omits any mention of disasters.
The draft resolutions were finalised in October 2019, well before the current bush-fire disaster, and it is unclear whether Australia will stick to its guns or shift its position on disasters.
Japan also comes to the meeting with a strongly worded statement on the South China Sea, which says that China's island building has eroded trust, increased tension and could undermine peace and stability. And it is calling for strong condemnation of North Korea's nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches.
The meeting, which includes delegates from China and Russia, as well as many Pacific Island nations, comes as Prime Minister Scott Morrison considers a Royal commission on the bush-fire disaster.
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson weighed in, saying she supported a Royal commission so long as it considered "both sides of the climate change debate".
"Is it so-called man-made climate change that caused this series of disasters, or is it mismanagement of the land due to environment and climate change policies? Let's investigate and prove what it is. I've got my beliefs but I'd like to know for sure," she said.
"People can no longer graze their cattle in national parks, the government is not allowing fallen trees on private property to be raked, residents can't even collect a little firewood for their stoves and heaters like they used to, so the fuel has been allowed to build up over many many years."
The Palau delegate to the Asia Pacific forum Senator Jerrlyn Uduch Sengebau, called for stronger climate action, saying her nation of just 20,000 people had been hit with typhoons in 2012 and 2013 that had destroyed coastal areas.
"People who live on the coastal areas areas have to relocate because their homes are inundated, also our taro patches have been inundated with water," she said.
"We're hoping .. we can get to ask the big countries to cut down on their emissions because we are the ones that suffer. It's like at the end of the river, the ones upstream - we feel the effects of what they do."
Japan's draft resolution calls on the Asia Pacific countries to recognise that disasters are exacerbated by climate change and increasing in frequency and intensity. Addressing climate change "represents an opportunity to reduce disaster risk in a meaningful and coherent manner".
Japan wants the forum to recognise the "vulnerability of the Asia-Pacific region to climate change, its current very high sensitivity and low capacity for adaptation, the importance of the quick implementation of global warming mitigation and adaptation measures".
Australia's version of the resolution omits this and the references to disasters. It also ignores Japan's call for countries to fully implement the Kyoto intentional emissions trading scheme and carbon market.
It does acknowledge, along with Japan, that small island nations and landlocked developing countries face an especially grave threat from environmental changes.
And Australia adds a couple of its own statements. It asks the international community to support "country-led science-based adaptation initiatives".
And it calls for "transformational change at scale, and for courageous and committed leaders prepared to urgently deliver on real, tangible actions addressing climate change".
A spokesman for Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor referred questions to Foreign Minister Marise Payne, who was yet to respond at deadline. Australia's delegation is led by Kevin Andrews.
Events arranged for the 350 visitors were to have included a visit to Tidbinbilla but with bush fires still burning out of control on three sides of Canberra, Tidbinbilla is closed. They have been offered an "Aussie barbecue lunch" at Gold Creek station, with sheep dog and sheep shearing demonstrations and boomerang throwing.