The Pacific islands of Vanuatu are standing up to the US government over a United Nations global warming resolution, demanding the world's major polluters pay reparations for failing to stem climate change.

The Trump administration has secured amendments weakening the proposal, and is further demanding Vanuatu drop its draft resolution calling for support to enforce the International Court of Justice ruling last year that industrialised countries should pay financial damages for climate impacts.

"The US asked us to withdraw the resolution, which is disappointing, and it pushed back on the language," Vanuatu Climate Change Adaption minister, Ralph Regenvanu, said in a statement.

"We are hoping the compromise on the loss and damage registry will mean some of that other language will stay in.

"It's concerning, but we don't think it will derail the resolution completely, and I hope it will pass with more than just a simple majority."

The proposed resolution came from claims that a 2015 tropical cyclone wiped out up to 64 per cent of Vanuatu's GDP at the time.

Recent storms fuelled by a hotter ocean and air temperatures have caused similar economic and humanitarian catastrophes in other Pacific countries.

Vanuatu was forced to pull sections of its original resolution in hope that a modified version of the draft could be adopted at the UN assembly in a vote to be held in New York later this month.

Opposition to the resolution has been "more effective than from those in support", the Vanuatu minister admitted, adding that the European Union has "not been as helpful as we expected".

The Melanesian archipelago spearheaded the effort on behalf of Pasifika nation-states that are existentially threatened by the climate crisis.

"Having the Trump administration actively intervening in the free market to stop the phase-out of fossil fuels is very frustrating - it's beyond what you would expect a government to do," Mr Regenvanu said.

"It's going to have a huge harmful effect on the world and future generations."

The resolution reaffirms the opinion of the International Court of Justice decision that will remain non-binding, but it "could pose a major threat to US industry", the Trump administration declared in guidance to its American embassies and consulates last month. This stand is consistent with a long-held view from MAGA political campaigners in the US that the extent of climate change is largely a hoax.

"President (Donald) Trump has delivered a very clear message: that the UN and many nations of the world have gone wildly off track, exaggerating climate change into the world's greatest threat," a US State Department cable added in its opposition to the proposed resolution.

Similar opposition alongside those from other serious fossil fuel producers that include Saudi Arabia and Russia has been behind the proposed UN resolution being watered down.

The resolution had called for climate-affected countries to submit a registry of the "loss and damage" they have suffered from the impacts of an overheated world that include storms, floods and droughts. This accounting of damages was strenuously opposed by the US - the world's second-largest carbon emitter - which has urged other industrialised countries to remain firmly wedded to its support of the fossil fuel industry, which science has long and consistently argued is heating up the planet.

However, a new version of the resolution's draft shared for debate within the past week outlines that UN member states must "comply fully with their obligations under international law as they relate to climate change" consistent with the International Court of Justice ruling.

Industrialised countries have been asked to restrain the global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial times via "a rapid, just and quantified phase-out of fossil fuel production and use".

Vanuatu's resolution - should it pass - would not impose any specific fees or regulations on the polluting countries that the US government under President Trump could still be ignored.

Projects have been designed to strengthen climate data collection, reporting and verification systems and support national obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement.