Fiji leader slams Liberal MP John Alexander's climate change advice

Fiji's Prime Minister has hit back at a Liberal MP who suggested Pacific Islanders should move to higher ground to avoid the impacts of climate change. Key points: Frank Bainimarama said John Alexander's advice would be "useless" for low-lying nations He said Australia had a moral responsibility to fight climate change He also lashed out at Kevin Rudd's "insensitive" climate change suggestions John Alexander stoked controversy at a candidate's forum when he said Australia's response to climate change should focus on helping Pacific Island nations to build more resilience to severe weather, including by removing low-lying dwellings. But Frank Bainimarama said Pacific Islanders would find it wrenching to abandon their homes, and Mr Alexander's solution would be useless for tiny Pacific nations which barely rise above sea level. And he lashed out at former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who suggested that some small low-lying Pacific nations threatened by climate change could trade their sovereignty in return for Australian citizenship "In a time when we must be future-facing we can hardly tolerate such insensitive, neo-colonial prescriptions," he said. Frank Bainimarama said it still wasn't clear if the world could muster the political will to stop "catastrophic" global warming, which was already damaging Pacific nations as storms and cyclones intensified.