{"id":70869,"date":"2025-04-09T11:12:21","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T02:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/apr\/09\/palau-president-australia-cop-31-climate-summit"},"modified":"2025-04-09T11:44:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T02:44:53","slug":"palau-president-backs-australias-bid-to-host-cop31-climate-summit-after-dutton-labels-it-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=70869","title":{"rendered":"Palau president delivers barb at Peter Dutton over \u2018water lapping your door\u2019 hot mic joke"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Surangel Whipps Jr also strongly backs Australia\u2019s bid to host a UN climate conference<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/live\/2025\/apr\/09\/australia-election-2025-live-anthony-albanese-peter-dutton-labor-coalition-greens-adam-bandt-debate-gas-prices-cost-of-living-economy-tariffsntwnfb\">Election 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaign<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Get our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl\">afternoon election email<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/app.adjust.com\/w4u7jx3\">free app<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/australia-news\/series\/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl\">daily news podcast<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The president of Palau has delivered a pointed barb at Peter Dutton while strongly backing an Australian bid to host a UN climate conference on behalf of the Pacific, arguing that it would boost regional solidarity and he would be \u201cdeeply disappointed\u201d if the attempt was abandoned under the Coalition.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at a renewable energy conference in Sydney on Wednesday, Surangel Whipps Jr described seeing two-thirds of an island in his archipelago country disappear under water in his lifetime. \u201cFor those of us in the Pacific who have lived through storm surges, rising ocean levels and increasingly high tides, the phrase \u2018water lapping at our door\u2019 is not a metaphor or a punchline. It\u2019s our fear and reality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/email-newsletters?CMP=copyembed\">Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/apr\/09\/palau-president-australia-cop-31-climate-summit\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Surangel Whipps Jr also strongly backs Australia\u2019s bid to host a UN climate conferenceElection 2025 live updates: Australia federal election campaignGet our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcastThe president of Palau has delivered a &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4683,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,43,3286,324,2331,534,3287,493,65,492,837,874,1439,679,659],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-australia-news","category-australian-election-2025","category-australian-politics","category-climate-crisis","category-coalition","category-cop31","category-energy","category-environment","category-fossil-fuels","category-global-climate-talks","category-pacific-islands","category-palau","category-peter-dutton","category-renewable-energy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4683"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70869"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70895,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70869\/revisions\/70895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}