Climate Change conference

“My name is Moemoana Schwenke. Moemoana means ‘calm ocean’. I am here, at COP26, for the Pacific Islands, and for Samoa. In these places, the land, the ocean and the people have a heartbeat. They are like my roots that firmly ground my identity.”

“Yet now, this calm ocean is angry. It is violent, washing over lands that carry culture, washing over my ancestors’ burial grounds with the chance and fear of my people becoming climate refugees.”

President Sebastián Piñera said the decision had caused him "pain" but his government needed "to prioritise re-establishing public order".

The COP25 climate summit was scheduled for 2 to 13 December, while the Apec trade forum was next month.

The UN said it was now looking at alternative venues.

World leaders were to gather at this year's Conference of the Parties (COP) to discuss the implementation of the Paris Accord - a landmark international climate agreement, first signed at COP21 in December 2015.

Nearly 400 academics, scientists, policy makers and politicians are in the capital for the three-day conference.

Brianna Fruean, from Samoa and representing Pacific Climate Change Warriors, says it's encouraging to see more youth taking action against climate change. 

A global 1.5 degree target is what the Pacific has been advocating to combat climate change.

Tuilaepa Sa'ilele Malielegaoi, who is the current chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, said the region needed to address its own climate issues if it is to call on the rest of the world to address their emissions.

Tuilaepa was speaking at the Pacific Oceans Climate Change Conference in New Zealand's capital.

He told the Wellington audience that climate change was a reality that the Pacific faced every day.

Pacific leaders, climate scientists, academics and civil society leaders are among 240 delegates attending this month's Climate Change Conference in Wellington.

Aupito William Sio, along with Climate Change Minister James Shaw, will address the three day summit which has the theme "Pacific Oceans, Pacific Climate". 

"For our part in New Zealand, we've already set a goal that New Zealand becomes carbon-free by the year 2050," he says. "That's sending a very strong signal to the rest of the world that as small as we are, we're prepared to do our part."