UNFCCC COP30: Pacific Perspective

08.11.25

The Pacific Elders’ Voice (PEV) takes this opportunity to voice its concerns about the need for the forthcoming UNFCCC COP 30 to deliver tangible outcomes. Only a commitment to measurable and specific outcomes will enable vulnerable nations like Pacific SIDS to deal with the adverse impacts of climate change on their development and survival.

We celebrate and take note of the Pacific’s role in successfully getting a positive and reassuring opinion from the United Nations International Court of Justice. We especially applaud Vanuatu for its leadership in supporting the actions of the PISFC. The ICJ opinion not only provides a new impetus to the climate change dialogue, it provides the negotiators and governments, especially from the developing world, a much stronger legal basis for their demands of doing what is morally and scientifically right.

We call on all industrialised nations, including the Governments of Australia and NZ (both members of the Pacific Islands Forum) to urgently honour their Paris Agreement commitments to significantly reduce its Greenhouse Gases(GHG) emissions. We reiterate our calls for Australia to urgently phase out gas and coal and stop opening up new coal mining, as it has promised many times to Pacific Leaders at past PIF meetings. Real actions on climate change mitigation and adaptation, including for loss and damage, cannot be substituted by ODA, which, in any case, remains inadequate and well below the levels of 0.7% GNI, agreed to by the international community as the minimum level of assistance.

The issues requiring attention, including increased finance, focus on adaptation, phasing out fossil fuels, loss and damage and the need for the big polluters to reduce the GHG emissions, which is necessary to have any prospect of maintain the increase in average temperature at 1.5°C.

“Whilst we recognise that co-hosting COP31 would enhance the voices of small island states that have been consistently held back from opportunities on the global stage, we feel that Australia as a developed country member of the Pacific Islands Forum family is duty-bound to demonstrate greater and genuine leadership in climate action, as well as play a bigger role in the global actions in reducing GHGs which is ultimately leading to the existential threats to the PSIDS.” This is the time for concrete and specific action.

ENDS

Anote Tong, Chair Former President of the Republic of Kiribati
Thomas “Tommy” Remengesau Jr, Former President of Palau
Enele Sopoaga, Former Prime Minister of Tuvalu
Dame Meg Taylor, Former Secretary-General, Pacific Island Forum Secretariat
Robert Underwood, Former Governor of Guam and Member of U.S. Congress & President
of the University of Guam
Kaliopate Tavola, Ambassador and Former Minister, Government of Fiji
Rt. Hon Bikenibeu Paeniu, Former Prime Minister, Tuvalu
Vijay Naidu, Former Professor and Director of Development Studies at the University of the
South Pacific (USP), and Victoria University of Wellington
Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop, Emeritus Professor, Auckland University of Technology

More statements

08.11.25

UNFCCC COP30: Pacific Perspective

We call on all industrialised nations, including the Governments of Australia and NZ (both members of the Pacific Islands Forum) to urgently honour their Paris Agreement commitments to significantly reduce its Greenhouse Gases(GHG) emissions. This is the time for concrete and specific action.

02.08.25

Pacific advocacy wins at the world’s highest court!

The Pacific Elders’ Voice applauds the historic Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice and pays tribute to the dedication and resilience of the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change and the Government of Vanuatu for supporting the course of actions that has now transformed climate change into a global, human rights issue.

05.06.25

Australia’s decision to extend the Woodside gas project and implications for co-hosting COP31 with the Pacific

The Pacific Elders’ Voice notes with deep concern the recent decision by the Government of Australia to extend the lifetime of its Woodside North West Shelf Extension gas project until 2070.