(AFP) - Papua New Guinea's top diplomat has derided next month's COP climate gathering as "a total waste of time", saying Thursday that his nation will boycott the summit until "big polluters get their act together".

"There's no point going if we are falling asleep because of jet lag because we're not getting anything done," Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko said in an interview with AFP ahead of November's COP29 summit in Azerbaijan.

"All the big polluters of the world promise and commit millions to assist in climate relief and support. And I can tell you now it's all going to consultants."

The island of New Guinea is home to the third-largest expanse of rainforest on the planet, according to the World Wildlife Fund, and is often dubbed one of the "lungs of the earth".

Impoverished, flanked by ocean, and already prone to natural disasters, Papua New Guinea is also considered to be highly vulnerable to the unfolding perils of climate change.

"We are sick of the rhetoric as well as the merry-go-round of getting absolutely nothing done over the last three years," Tkatchenko said.

It is an increasingly common critique levelled at the United Nations' premier climate summit, which has struggled to shed perceptions that big emissions-belching economies are holding back meaningful action.

But Papua New Guinea is one of the first nations to voice full-throated calls to boycott the annual COP meetings altogether.

© Agence France-Presse