The Pacific cannot be a "sacrifice zone" for the impacts of climate change, Indigenous leaders have told political leaders and dignitaries at a climate summit in Fiji.
Speaking on Wednesday at a pre-COP31 climate conference hosted by Fiji and Tuvalu, Common Threads CEO Larissa Baldwin-Roberts said First Nations and Pasifika peoples were "living on the frontlines of climate change impacts".
"But we refuse to accept the narrative of inevitable loss," she said.
"Indigenous people have an absolute, inherent right to remain on our ancestral lands. The Pacific cannot be a sacrifice zone."
Pacific nations are expected to bear the brunt of rising sea levels, with vulnerable island states already facing increasing threats to communities and infrastructure.
Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo has called for greater commitments to grants for endangered island nations at COP31, arguing their communities were being forced to bear an unfair burden.
"Why should countries like Tuvalu take on more debt to protect ourselves from a climate crisis we did so little to cause?" he asked.
"Climate finance must not push vulnerable countries deeper into debt simply to survive."
Speaking on behalf of the International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), Ms Baldwin-Roberts said Indigenous and Pacific representatives had gathered at the pre-COP conference to demand "urgent action to end the fossil fuel era and invest in climate adaptation".
"World leaders must defund destruction, stop fossil fuel expansions, and immediately fund the adaptation we need to survive," she said.
"Commitments on paper mean nothing if the ground continues to erode beneath our feet and the waters rise above us."
The Widjabul Wia-bul woman also referenced a High Court ruling on Wednesday that found the approval of a Hunter Valley coal mine was invalid, saying the decision confirmed what Indigenous people "have always known".
"Governments and corporations must be held accountable for the downstream climate destruction their fossil fuels unleash," Ms Baldwin-Roberts argued.
"Holding the line at 1.5 degrees means an absolute, immediate stop to the expansion of coal and gas. The courts see clearly: extracting and exporting fossil fuels is climate destruction, whether you burn it on our lands or export the destruction elsewhere."
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, speaking at the conference this week, said the effects of climate change were already being felt across the Pacific.
"Climate change is not a problem for the future," he said.
"It is here right now, and we know that sea levels here in the western Pacific are rising at more than twice the global average. We know also that the forecast of super El Niño may test us all."
Representatives from 30 nations arrived in Tuvalu, a nation of nine islands and atolls, early on Tuesday for a traditional welcome ceremony before visiting a site being developed under the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project.
The multimillion-dollar program is reclaiming coastal land across four sites, with the goal of creating more than 20 hectares of land safe for habitation by the end of 2026.
The reclaimed land will be built six metres above the reef flat to withstand the highest recorded tide of 3.2 metres, project manager Alan Resture said. It will be used for housing, schools and hospitals.
"What we are doing here has shown to the world that adaptation is not a dream," Mr Resture told AAP.
"Our leaders are working tirelessly to make sure the people of Tuvalu remain safe from all the ... adverse impacts of climate change and sea-level rise."
With AAP
