Call to boost Pacific climate funding

Australia is not doing enough to help its Pacific Island neighbours in their battle against climate change, a new report has found.

Oxfam Australia is calling on the Australian government to commit to a target of $3.2 billion in private and public funding to help poorer nations mitigate global warming by 2020.

The federal government allocates $200 million each year to climate finance, but didn't increase its contributions alongside other countries at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris last year.

The $200 million comes from the existing foreign aid budget.

An Oxfam report analysing climate finance in the Pacific Islands - which are on the frontline of global warming - called for urgent action through 50 recommendations, including improving access to the global Green Climate Fund.

Australia pledged to improve access when elected to lead the Green Climate Fund in 2016 and Oxfam Australia acknowledged the government had been proactive on that promise.

However, chief executive Helen Szoke said overall Australia's contribution to the Pacific Islands remains unmet and underfunded.

"In coming decades, big numbers of Pacific people - in some cases entire nations - could be forced from their homes and losing their livelihoods in the face of an escalation in climate related impacts," she said.

"As a wealthy nation and one of the biggest countries in the region, Australia has a particular responsibility to support its vulnerable neighbours in the Pacific."

The report also calls for a phase out of fossil-fuel subsidies.