US President Barack Obama has trolled G20 summit host Prime Minister Tony Abbott by stressing the need to act on climate change in a speech to students at the University of Queensland.
In a speech originally intended to be about the USA's "pivot to Asia", President Obama raised the most applause by simply mentioning the words "climate change".
"Here in the Asia Pacific nobody has more at stake when it comes to thinking about and then acting on climate change. Here a climate that increases in temperature will mean more extreme and frequent storms, more flooding, rising seas," he said to the crowd of University of Queensland students.
Climate change has been a topic Mr Abbott has tried very hard to keep off the agenda at the G20 Leader's Summit in light of his government's poor environmental record and the scrapping of Australia's carbon pricing scheme earlier this year.
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Obama also announced a further three billion dollars for the "Green Climate Fund" and talked-up the deal struck with China this week which hopes to see the US and China accelerate the reduction of carbon emmissions
"Setting up a target, sends a powerful message to the world that all countries, whether you are a developed country, a developing country or somewhere in between, you've got to be able to overcome old divides, look squarely at the science and reach a strong global climate agreement next year."
President Obama also nailed several zingers about his visit to Australia, including that he needed to try a XXXX beer while he was in "Brisvegas".
Mr Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey had hoped to talk about "growth and jobs" at the G20. But the US-China climate deal and Mr Abbott's diplomatic spat with Russian President Vladimir Putin have dominated media coverage of the summit
President Obama also had time to stress the need to focus on women and LGBTI rights - two other subjects that have been neglected by Australia's conservative government.
"We will stand up for the rights and futures of our wives and daughters and partners because I believe that the best measure of whether a nation is going the be successful is whether they are tapping the talents of their women and treating them as full participants in politics and society and the economy."
