Fiji's prime minister has told a climate conference in Fiji that everyone needs to be more ambitious to reach climate change goals.
Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama addressing the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly in New York in September 2016 Photo: Supplied
Frank Bainimarama was addressing delegates at the Climate Action Pacific Partnership Conference in Suva.
As president of last year's UN climate talks (COP23), Mr Bainimarama said he had deep concern and impatience at the lack of progress on curbing climate change.
The latest projections were that temperatures would rise as much as three degrees celsius over the next century, he said.
"We cannot let that happen because it would spell the end of our way of life forever," Mr Bainimarama said.
"To achieve the goal we have set - to keep warming within 1.5 degrees - we must ask more of each and every person on earth.
"We need to ask more of governments and we need to ask more of ourselves as Pacific Islanders. And we must do it with every ounce of strength we can muster."