Global warming 'will make refugee crisis worse'

Global warming would create a refugee crisis far worse than the one Australia has faced in the last two weeks, Bill Clinton has warned.

Clinton told a fundraising dinner in Sydney that hundreds of thousands of people around the world would become refugees if climate change wasn't addressed.

At the reception of 800 people, Clinton also spoke of the need for Australia and the US to work together in tackling health and education issues and threats to national security.

He said: "The science is unassailable. If the world keeps growing for the next 50 years warmer as it has for the last decade you're going to see some of the small nations in the Pacific actually flooded.

"If you're worried about 400 people, you just let the world keep warming up like this for the next 50 years and your grandchildren will be worried about 400,000 people."

Early last week, the Australian government refused to allow a Norwegian ship carrying 433 asylum seekers to dock in the country.

Mr Clinton added: "If we let the divide between rich and poor, ignorant and learned grow ... there will be a lot more ... Kosovos and Bosnias.

"Those of us in positions of wealth and power ... have a heavy responsibility to bring them (the poor and helpless) into the circle of positive interdependence."

Prime Minister John Howard said he wants to stem a tide of would-be immigrants, who arrive each year by the thousands hoping to be given refugee status and start a new life.

Earlier yesterday, Australia's navy intercepted another boat carrying about 200 suspected illegal immigrants to Australia.

They are now on their way by navy ship to Papua New Guinea before flying to New Zealand and the Pacific island of Nauru for their asylum applications to be processed.