Pacific leaders are gathering in Fiji and Tuvalu for a meeting ahead of the annual global climate summit ( COP31 ) to be held in Turkey (also known as Türkiye) in November.
Authors
- Vaeno Wayne Vigulu
Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, Solomon Islands National University
- Richard Levy
General Manager Atmosphere and Climate, Earth Sciences New Zealand
- Tim Naish
Professor in Earth Sciences, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
The goal of the meeting is to amplify a Pacific voice to raise the urgency of keeping global warming as close to 1.5°C as possible.
This comes as a recent United Nations Environment Programme ( UNEP ) report confirmed the world is on track to cross 1.5°C within the next five years, but also identified pathways for returning to this temperature threshold as quickly as possible.
This matters for low-lying atoll nations whose very existence depends on it. As the UNEP report highlights, there are no safe futures above 1.5°C since every fraction of a degree changes sea-level rise, adaptation costs and locked-in future risks.
Elevating Pacific priorities is also one of four headline goals for the COP31 climate summit in Turkey. Australia will be leading negotiations and Pacific leaders will have an opportunity to bring their conclusions directly to the table.
Keeping 1.5°C within reach
The Pacific leaders’ meeting builds on conclusions from the 5th Pacific Oceans Pacific Climate Change Conference , which we attended in Honiara, Solomon Islands, last month.
The science presented there was unambiguous. Sea-level rise, ocean warming, intensifying cyclones and limits to adaptation are already reshaping life across the region .
The tone of the conference was serious, but not fatalistic. Pacific leadership was instrumental in getting 1.5°C written into the Paris Agreement . The meeting demonstrated that the same collective voice continues .
Delegates expressed frustration with existing climate-finance models, including the Green Climate Fund , which have complex access processes , minimum project sizes and co-financing requirements. This often means pledged money does not reliably reach communities on the front line.
The conference sought backing for regional, Pacific-led finance options such as the Pacific Resilience Facility . This fund already comprises pledges approaching US$173 million and Australia and Fiji have now ratified it .
Delegates were clear that climate finance should be accessible, directed by Pacific priorities, reach communities and build stronger institutions.
As one speaker put it:
Transformative climate finance is not defined by the size of the investment. It is defined by what remains after the funding cycle ends.
This principle also extends to people. Delegates called for capacity building that results in career pathways for Pacific scientists and knowledge holders.
Elevating ocean-climate connections
For Pacific peoples, climate change arrives via the ocean, which is also essential for food security, human health, resilience and attachment to place.
Many Pacific countries already have resilience plans and tools in place. The next step is to connect them across sectors and incorporate the ocean more strongly into regional and global policy.
This should include stronger links to global programmes to monitor and restore biodiversity so the ocean is not left in the gaps between international processes.
The evidence of climate change impacts in Pacific nations is already well established. Climate and sea-level modelling, coastal science, ecosystem monitoring and community-led planning are all underway to reduce disaster risk and build resilience.
This is alongside oral histories used to test hazard models and traditional knowledge informing adaptation .
Bringing these knowledge systems together is strengthening the evidence base needed to combat climate change, provided it is done with consent and protection for restricted knowledge.
It also elevates the work of Pacific-based researchers on non-economic impacts such as irreplaceable losses to language, culture and intergenerational memory.
Amplifying Pacific voices and leadership
Perhaps the strongest message from the Honiara conference was a rejection of the framing that has long dominated conversations about the Pacific and climate change.
Conversation tends to focus on vulnerability, smallness, isolation and limited resources. But as Emma Dunlop-Bennett , Pasifika assistant vice chancellor at Victoria University of Wellington Te Herenga Waka, told delegates:
We are not powerless in the face of it. We are peoples of extraordinary knowledge.
Agency is visible in Pacific political leadership, communities, institutions and researchers. But Pacific evidence must also travel into the systems that shape global decisions – such as having Pacific scientists contributing to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments and evidence flowing into investment pipelines.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale put the challenge bluntly:
To the scientists and academics here, I say produce knowledge that can travel beyond the journals and conference halls. To policymakers, I say, create pathways through which evidence changes laws, budgets and public investment.
The greatest opportunity identified in Honiara was the level of agreement already present.
Political leaders, donors, governments, scientists, communities and young people converged on the same messages of keeping 1.5°C alive, strengthening Pacific leadership, bringing communities into decisions, fixing access to finance and turning knowledge into implementation.
Last year, the International Court of Justice reaffirmed the 1.5°C aspirational target of the Paris Agreement and issued an advisory opinion that countries have a legal duty to adopt and maintain ambitious climate measures.
The initiative was led by Pacific Island law students . For small island states, which contribute a fraction of global emissions yet face the gravest threats from rising seas, the opinion offers both vindication and leverage.
But the window to hold warming close to 1.5°C is closing rapidly. The rest of the world needs to listen, act on reducing emissions with urgency and back Pacific leadership with finance that fits regional realities.
The authors acknowledge the contributions of Tracey Vanugi at the Solomon Islands National University, Vanda Faasoa-Chan Ting and Yvette Kerslake at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme in Samoa, Noora Yukich at Haskoning New Zealand, and the participants of the 5th Pacific Oceans Pacific Climate Change Conference.
