Photo: SPREP
Nauru's Minister of Climate Change has told the UN's climate summit there has been a long-standing lack of care for the Pacific from those with real power.
Rennier Stanislaus Gadabu said for decades small island nations have made appeals to common humanity, and to shared values.
Gadabu said climate change is an issue of national security for Nauru's infrastructure, but also ecology, food and water.
"We have placed our trust in Western experts, who have pushed false solutions and urged us to compromise for the good of the process," he told delegates in Egypt.
"It's hard to conclude that this strategy has been anything but a failure. The decision-makers, those with real power, simply do not care."
Gadabu said climate change is an issue of national security for Nauru's infrastructure but also ecology, food and water.
"As an issue of national security, we must forge alliances that protect our national security - not based on some vaguely-worded promises about distant failure, but based upon material outcomes in the here and now, material outcomes on the ground in Nauru," he said.
"Climate change is no longer a prospective danger to be avoided.
"It is a clear and present danger that will only grow for decades to come."
Despite the island's elevation, Gadabu said Nauru's coral bleaching will affect a large part its fisheries and therefore its economy.