The President of Kiribati said his country is destined to become uninhabitable due to ocean-level rise in a frank address at ANU last week.
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Professor Will Steffen thanks President Tong, while Professor Peter Kanowski looks on.
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His Excellency Anote Tong called on Australia and the rest of the international community to help provide skills training to his people so that they would be more attractive as migrants.
The leader of the central Pacific nation said he was resigned to the fact that a changing climate and rising sea levels spelled the eventual demise of the island and low-lying atolls of his homeland.
"Our destiny is sealed," he said, adding that the only options available to his people were to "drown or be relocated".
The President objected to his people being labelled environmental refugees, saying that the term came with a stigma that robbed the I-Kiribati of dignity.
He lamented the fact that the plight of polar bears in a changing climate received more media attention than Islander peoples, but said he was hopeful that the people of Kiribati would be able to relocate and integrate into receptive countries around the Pacific Rim.
President Anote Tong spoke at the Fenner School of Environment and Society on 19 June. He was welcomed by climatologist Associate Professor Janette Lindesay, Earth-systems scientist Professor Will Steffen, and forestry expert Professor Peter Kanowski.
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