Prime Minister Tony Abbott. Picture: Tim Carrafa Source: News Corp Australia

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The PM’s latest removal of a policy “barnacle’’ came as Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop fronted a climate change summit in Peru. After years criticising the UN-backed Green Climate Fund, which helps developing­ nations tackle climate­ change, Mr Abbott announced the Government would put in $200 million.

The move brings Australia into line with the international community but contradicts the Government’s “debt and deficit­ disaster’’ line it is using to justify Budget cuts.

“I’ve made various comments some time ago but, as we have seen things develop over the last few months, I think it’s now fair and reasonable for the Government to make a modest, prudent and proportionate commitment to this climate mitigation fund,’’ Mr Abbott said.

The pledge will fund sustainable investment in infrastructure, energy and forestry in the Indo-Pacific region. In November 2013 the PM­ invoked the name of former Greens leader Bob Brown to deride the fund.

“We are determined to say what we mean and do what we say, so we will never say one thing at an international conference and another thing at home,’’ Mr Abbott told The Australian.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said Mr Abbott and Ms Bishop did not believe in the science of climate change.

“Now we find out that in Peru the Abbott Government’s been forced into a humiliating retreat where they’re doing what they said they would never do, taking $200 million from foreign aid, putting it into climate change action globally because they’ve been shamed into it,’’ Mr Shorten said.

The move surprised Coalition­ backbenchers, with some questioning whether Mr Abbott had decided to claw back ground on climate as a means of confronting Ms Bishop’s soaring public popularity.

Others suggested the Victorian election result showed climate change was now a mainstream issue and the Government needed to ­re-engage on it. The money comes from foreign aid funds, which took a $7.6 billion, five-year hit in the Budget.

Ms Bishop has been working to protect her budget after the Government turned to it as easy pickings because it did not need approval from the hostile Senate. Several sources told the Herald Sun Ms Bishop “went off her head’’ at Finance Minister Mathias Cormann at an Expenditure Review Committee meeting last week when it was suggested another raid might be launched on the foreign­ aid budget.

Mr Abbott on Wednesday embarked on the sales job for the latest incarnation of his Medicare co-payment scheme.

ellen.whinnett@news.com.au