Port Moresby: Australia should take a leadership role at the upcoming Paris climate summit on behalf of its vulnerable Pacific neighbours, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill says.
Mr O'Neill has also called on Australia to also ensure measures are built into a new global climate change agreement that would financially help vulnerable Pacific nations cope with the impacts of climate change and compensate them for those impacts.
His comments followed a meeting with Opposition Leader Bill Shorten on Monday, who is touring Pacific nations to highlight the impact on climate change to the region. 
Mr Shorten is understood to have told Mr O'Neill during the meeting that PNG would be the first country he would visit as prime minister if Labor won office at next year's federal election.
Speaking after the meeting Mr O'Neill said on climate change: "I think it is important that the international community appreciates what small countries, especially island communities, face not only in the Pacific but elsewhere."
"They are very vulnerable. I think Australia, being the largest economy in our region and a developed country, needs to play a leading role, that's what we are looking for," he said.
He also called for both financing for poor countries to be contained in a new global climate pact and a "loss and damage" program to compensate poor countries for the impact of climate change.
"We are not looking for the financial reward, we are looking to making sure the international community can assist in the resettlement exercise, rebuilding some of the communities," Mr O'Neill said.
"Those are some of the challenges that is needed to be addressed to secure many of the low-lying countries in the Pacific."
Asked whether Australia was doing enough in its own climate change efforts, Mr O'Neill held back from some of the more fevered criticism that other Pacific nations have made of Australia's climate stance, saying: "We are having a constructive dialogue, let's put it that way."
"We don't want to be having debates among ourselves before we are going to Paris," he said.
He also stopped short of supporting the call from Pacific island states, led by Kiribati, for a moratorium on new coal mines.
While not facing the exact same climate change risks as low-lying islands in the Pacific, PNG is still exposed to changing and intense extreme weather.
The country is currently going through significant drought and frost events, which has been brought on by El Nino and damaged food crops in the country's highlands.
An estimated 3000,000 people have been affected so far, and that could rise to 2.4 million as El Nino extends throughout summer and into early 2016.
Mr O'Neill said his government had reached out to Australia and Japan to help it deliver food supplies to communities in remote parts of the country.
In particular he said they were looking to use some of Australia's planes and defence facilities to help deliver supplies into affected areas.
Australia led an aerial food drop effort in PNG during the last major El Nino event in 1997-98, but Mr O'Neill said the PNG government response has been more effective this time around.
After an overnight stay in PNG, Mr Shorten flew out to the Marshall Islands on Monday morning. He will stay there for one day before travelling to Kiribati. 
The Marshall Islands' government has heavily criticised the strength of Australia's emissions reduction pledge of 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
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