PACIFIC youth have adopted a unified climate statement calling for action to protect the 1.5°C survival threshold, deliver accessible climate finance, safeguard the Pacific Ocean and give young people decision-making power ahead of Pre-COP31, COY21 and COP31.
The Pacific Youth Climate Statement was adopted at the Regional Conference of Youth – Oceania 2026, held from August 18–20 at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in Suva, with open online participation across the Pacific.
The conference brought together young people and youth representatives from Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia and the Pacific diaspora. The Pacific Youth Council, Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change, 350 Pacific, and the Alliance for Future Generations Fiji co-convened it.
Endorsed by YOUNGO, the Children and Youth Constituency of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the conference was the third and culminating dialogue of the hybrid Pre-COP31 Pacific Youth Talanoa Series.
“1.5°C is a survival threshold,” the statement says.
It identifies six red lines that Pacific youth describe as non-negotiable: recognition of 1.5°C as a survival threshold; rejection of false solutions; a precautionary moratorium on deep-sea mining; protection of non-economic loss and damage from being reduced to monetary value; an end to treating the Pacific Ocean as a sacrifice zone; and a guarantee that decisions about Pacific futures will not be made without Pacific youth and affected communities.
The statement calls for a just and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels, 1.5°C-aligned national climate commitments, community-owned renewable energy and an end to plastic pollution.
It also calls for accessible, predictable, grant-based and locally led climate finance, including full capitalisation of the Pacific Resilience Facility and support for youth and community organisations.
The ocean is placed at the centre of climate action, with calls for a dedicated ocean stream under the UNFCCC, protection of blue-carbon ecosystems, action on marine and radioactive pollution, decarbonisation of international shipping, food and water security, and a moratorium on deep-sea mining.
Pacific youth also call for adaptation finance at parity with mitigation finance, community-led early warning systems, water security, resilient infrastructure and protection of the right to stay in place. Where relocation becomes unavoidable, they call for rights-based and consent-based approaches.
“Nothing About Our Futures Without Us.”
“The Pacific Youth Climate Statement is more than a conference outcome. It is a regional mandate shaped through dialogue, debate, amendment, and agreement by young people from across Oceania,” said Miliana Iga, Coordinator of the Pacific Youth Council, on behalf of the co-conveners.
The participants agreed on an advocacy roadmap to transmit the statement to Pre-COP31 organisers, the Pacific COP31 Envoys, YOUNGO for COY21, and the Global Youth Statement. The roadmap provides for statement custodians and sub-regional focal points to support continuity and accountability beyond the conference.
