Vanuatu's parliament has declared a climate emergency, with the low-lying island nation's prime minister flagging a $1.2 billion cost to cushion climate change's impacts on his country, AFP reported on Saturday.

Speaking to parliament in Port Vila on Friday, Prime Minister Bob Loughman said rising sea levels and severe weather were already disproportionately affecting the Pacific, highlighting two devastating tropical cyclones and a hard-hitting drought in the last decade.