The Albany Gazette - Pacific presses world for help 'surviving' climate change at pre-COP summit

This week's "pre-COP" meetings in the Fijian city of Nadi are a precursor to the larger UN-sponsored global climate summit -- known as COP31 -- to be held in Turkey next month.

The South Pacific is among the regions of the world most vulnerable to global warming -- from rising seas jeopardising homes to increasing temperatures causing coral bleaching.

Speaking on the sidelines of the summit, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape told journalists Wednesday it was an issue of "morality".

"Nations who have sovereign borders are facing the threat of being nations no more," he said.

"We live with the burden of decisions made elsewhere."

Pacific nations are using the pre-COP platform to push for more backing for the countries most affected by climate change.

The EU's climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told journalists "we're clearly not doing enough".

A UN report released in August found developing countries needed $310 billion-$365 billion to adapt, yet had only $26 billion in adaptation finance available in 2023.

Regional leaders have set up the Pacific Resilience Facility with the hopes of raising $500 million, but has so far brought in commitments for less than half of that.

Fiji on Wednesday announced an addition $10 million for that fund.

"We need to be able to help our people to survive," Fiji's climate minister Lynda Tabuya said.

The Australian government also said it would invest AU$3 million (US$2 million) on a number of regional road and communications infrastructure projects in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Kiribati and Tuvalu.

Australia's climate minister Chris Bowen said the money would "help these countries adjust to climate change, particularly focused on the coastlines with erosion, with rising sea levels".

- 'Keep 1.5C alive' -

Also high on the agenda is a push by Pacific leaders for the world to stick to a target of limiting global warming to 1.5C.

Scientists agree that warming above 1.5C relative to pre-industrial times poses grave risks and nearly 200 nations committed a decade ago to try and keep global temperature rises to this safer threshold.

On Wednesday, AFP accompanied dozens of campaigners from the Pacific and Australia's Torres Strait Islanders on a flotilla which sailed past the summit venue and urged leaders to "keep 1.5C alive".

Poiongo Lisati from Fiji's Kioa Island said they hoped to "protect our people and also our land".

"If climate finance assistance can be made available for the maritime islands, it will be easy for us to get help," Lisati said.

- Frontline of climate change -

On Tuesday, over a dozen leaders visited the nearby Pacific nation of Tuvalu -- one of the world's least-visited countries already laying plans to relocate its population of 10,600 if the island nation is consumed by the ocean.

A marine heatwave in 2024 wiped out an estimated 99.9 percent of the coral that built the remote Tuvalu islands.

With just a few hours on the remote archipelago before flying back to Fiji, there was a rush from organisers to get in as many events as possible.

"The objective of this Tuvalu event is for you, leaders, to experience and feel climate change first-hand, from being in the frontline of the impact of climate change," Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo told visiting officials.

But Australia drew criticism from a Tuvalu government adviser, who accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of disrespect by not wearing a traditional headpiece during an event and for overstepping during the running of the visit.

Australia is head of this year's climate negotiations but has faced accusations of hypocrisy given its role as a major coal exporter.

(K.Lee--TAG)