Fiji pre-COP31 draws few leaders and leaves fund short
Australia, which leads the COP31 negotiations, wanted to bring the world to the Pacific. Only two heads of government from outside the region came.
The pre-COP, the ministerial meeting ahead of the COP31 climate summit, ended in the Pacific with fewer leaders than promised and less money than hoped. It ran from Oct. 5 to 8 between Tuvalu and Fiji. Australia, which leads the negotiations even though the summit will be held in November in Antalya, Turkey, pitched it as a chance to put the islands at the center of the climate agenda.
It did not work out that way. The leaders of Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom declined and sent ministers instead, according to ABC News. Fiji's government had anticipated five heads of government from outside the region, but two came: those of Mauritius and Timor-Leste. Australia's climate minister, Chris Bowen, said "we wanted to bring the world to Tuvalu," and denied having promised that leaders would attend. ABC adds that Australian officials had told other governments that only heads of government would go.
The money
The Pacific Resilience Facility is the region's bet on financing climate adaptation. With contributions from Fiji, Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark on top of earlier pledges, it holds a little under $200 million against a target of $500 million, according to PACNEWS. That figure has yet to be confirmed with the fund itself. AFP agrees it is below half.
Fiji added $10 million on Wednesday, Oct. 7. Australia, which had already pledged 100 million Australian dollars to the fund, announced a further 3 million Australian dollars, about $2 million, for four infrastructure projects: roads in Fiji and Papua New Guinea, and communications cables in Tuvalu and Kiribati. Separately, the Asian Development Bank offered Fiji a $210 million package.
The gap is wide. According to the Asian Development Bank, adaptation financing covers only 26% of the Pacific's projected annual needs.
What they said
Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union's climate commissioner, said "we're clearly not doing enough." Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu's climate minister, said they had hoped for more and blamed the low turnout on the world giving too little priority to what the islands see as their greatest threat. Papua New Guinea's prime minister, James Marape, framed the funding as a matter of "morality."
The meeting produced a text, the Taku Pakasoa Declaration, setting out the region's priorities on climate ambition, adaptation, oceans and financing. Fiji's climate minister, Lynda Tabuya, said it sends a clear message to the countries heading to Turkey. The exact date it was adopted and who signed it are not confirmed.
Still pending is a final communique from Thursday's plenary in Denarau, which has not been located so far. Forty countries have also yet to submit their national climate contributions, according to French minister Monique Barbut, and COP31 opens in November.
