Edmund Rice Centre director, Phil Glendenning, today issued an urgent appeal from Copenhagen calling Australians to make known to the Government the need for urgent and drastic action on climate change.

“We can't let ourselves fall in the trap of self-interested and cynical hard-heartedness,” he said. “If we do so as a nation, then it is our own humanity that is demeaned by our failure to respond to the humanity of our vulnerable neighbours.”

Representatives from the Pacific Island communities most threatened by rising sea levels, will travel to the Copenhagen UN summit this week, together with Australian human rights advocates, to ensure that the human face of climate change is not forgotten.

The Edmund Rice Centre (ERC) today called for a definitive end to the sort of debate that treats asylum seekers as political footballs - wilfully tossed around with the sole aim of gaining a team advantage in the game of politics.