Small Pacific Island states have written to members of the United Nations Security Council and delivered a statement to the UN General Assembly urging them to act to address the security threat posed by climate change.
The Pacific Small Island Developing States say climate change is a security threat because the rising sea levels projected by scientists will be catastrophic for low lying states.
Their chair and Nauru's ambassador to the UN, Marlene Moses, says the international community cannot turn its back on the forced evacuations, and conflict over increasingly scarce resources and territory that would result.
"How can you ignore 12 small countries when our problems are so real in terms of the earth warming and the sea level rising. How can you ignore that? You can't. I mean how can you ignore the disappearance of 12 UN member states."
Ambassador Moses says there's been a good response from the General Assembly, and they hope to receive a reply to their letter soon.
The group comprises Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
