Pacific Islands leaders emerged from a three-day conference in Honolulu on Wednesday with climate change once again dominating the topics of discussion.

“Climate change is really the greatest threat to the existence of our island nations,” said David Panuelo, president of the Federated States of Micronesia. “We small island countries are the ones that are paying the price. We are the front-liners in terms of feeling the effects of climate change.”

Panuelo spoke at a news briefing at the conclusion of the 12th Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders at the University of Hawaii.

Representatives of 16 countries and territories convened at UH’s East-West Center for the three-day gathering that started Monday.

Most of the meetings during the conference were closed to the public and press, but a few panels and side events were open to the public, including one in which Pacific Island leaders expressed frustration with the difficulty of accessing financing for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

The conference took place two weeks before many of the same Pacific Islands leaders are scheduled to go to Washington for a summit hosted by President Joe Biden in what’s billed as the first-ever U.S.- Pacific Island Country Summit Sept. 28-29.

The summit, which comes amid growing tensions between the U.S. and China, is expected to focus on a number of issues, including climate change, pandemic response, economic recovery, maritime security, environmental protection and advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific, according to a White House statement.

Panuelo said Wednesday that climate change will be at the top of the agenda for the Pacific Islands representatives meeting with the U.S. president.

Panuelo said leaders want not only the U.S. but China as well to champion climate change.

“We understand their roles as superpowers, but when they engage the Pacific Islands nations, we say we’re not interested in the superpower competition, because it’s a given. That will happen anyhow,” he said.

Panuelo said the U.S., China and all the industrialized nations of the world must meet commitments to reduce carbon emissions to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“If we don’t, then our global community will face a very, very severe impact,” he said. “When I spoke at the United Nations a couple of years ago, I said it might be a bigger challenge than the second World War because of the extinction to our species.”

Panuelo said some may take crisis for granted but it’s an extremely serious situation for Pacific Island nations, which rely on the ocean and land for their sustenance.

“In the bigger countries, you may be going into the supermarkets to buy your food. But guess where your food is coming from? It’s coming from the farms and the ocean. And if we don’t work together to combat the challenges of climate change, we will all be impacted in the most negative ways we can imagine,” the Micronesian president said.

Gov. David Ige, who sat alongside the Micronesian president, noted that representatives from Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand also attended the three-day conference, and those countries reiterated their commitments for financial support for the Pacific region.

The Pacific Island nations, Ige said, need easier access to financial resources to allow them to overhaul their energy systems and boost their resilience as they have seen increased typhoon activity, king tides, coral bleaching and other impacts of the climate crisis.

“The experience of small … nations accessing the Green Climate Fund has been very difficult,” Panuelo added. “I said at one point, it’s like pulling teeth. I mean, they are announcing billions and billions of dollars by the industrialized nations, but accessing these funds has been very difficult.”

The countries participating in this week’s conference included the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and American Samoa.

The Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders, a council of 20 member governments, was founded in 1980 by Hawaii Gov. George Ariyoshi and Fijian Prime Minister Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara as a forum for Pacific Islands leaders to discuss regional issues of concern.