The Most Reverend Doctor Winston Halapua says that despite Australia's best efforts to keep climate change off the G20 Summit agenda, it's become the dominant issue of the forum.
He said humanity's greed is to blame for climate change inaction and the narrow obsession with economic growth is causing immense harm to the planet.
"What I mean by that is it’s only a few people who line their pockets," Archbishop Halapua said.
"So when I say humanity, I would say that we are part of a whole species. Yet we human beings dominate the planet Earth as if we are the only living beings around."
He urged Australia and New Zealand to lead with action on climate change as regional leaders within the Pacific.
“This issue is not only the Pacific’s. When a major fundamental issue affects this universe and the planet Earth, it is our’s together. And for me, the absence or omission of climate change in the agenda speaks for itself.
“...And I raise it because Australia - as far as Pacific Island states are concerned, we are in the Pacific. Climate change affects badly on the Pacific. And I’m saying in my understanding, Australia and New Zealand are also in the Pacific.”
He said with rising sea levels, a number of Pacific Islanders are facing the prospect of having to move not only within nations but to other countries entirely.
“We are moving towards a kind of violence that we haven’t imagined because with the sea level rising and so many people are going to be displaced. That kind of emotion we can only foresee in the bits and pieces of what’s going now.”
