PACIFIC countries and international partners pledged funds to a region-led climate facility, while Australia announced a separate $3 million project to help protect Pacific infrastructure and communities from climate impacts.
The pledges to the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), which aims to direct funds to communities without foreign debt, included $10 million from Fiji and $1.1 million from the Solomon Islands. Denmark pledged $2.3 million, the United Kingdom pledged £10 million (reported as $13.24 million), and the Netherlands pledged €1 million, or about $1.12 million. Ireland said it intended almost to double its existing €3 million pledge.
The funding announcements came as Pacific leaders pressed for stronger climate action and support for small island states ahead of COP31.
Papua New Guinean Prime Minister Jame Marape urged countries with large carbon footprints to contribute to the PRF, describing it as “the Pacific helping ourselves.”
He said pledges should match contributors’ carbon footprints and called on those claiming to be friends of the Pacific to join the European Union and Australia in supporting island states.
“The PRF facility we are setting up is the Pacific to help Pacific,” Marape said. “Our waters are a huge carbon sink, our forests are a huge carbon sink.”
Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen announced the $3 million Climate Infrastructure for Resilient Coastlines and Riverbanks project.
It is intended to help Pacific island nations protect infrastructure and communities, including the landing site in Tuvalu of the VAKA undersea telecommunications cable being delivered through the Falepili Union.
Bowen said he had seen climate impacts in Tuvalu and described an Australia-New Zealand partnership to increase the island’s land mass by 30 per cent.
“We also saw firsthand a project dealing with the impacts of climate change, where Australia and New Zealand are partnering with Tuvalu to increase the land mass of that island by 30 per cent and to give them a chance at survival in an age of climate change,” he said.
Fijian Minister for Information, Environment and Climate Change Lynda Tabuya said the Pacific was “united more than ever” and called for keeping warming within the 1.5-degree Celsius goal. She said the Taku Pakasoa declaration, meaning “strength in unity,” would carry Pacific priorities to COP31.
“For our countries, it’s not a distant threat it’s happening to us right now,” Tabuya said.
European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth Wopke Hoekstra said the world had not delivered what it should have “a long time ago.” He identified clean electrification, science-based action and resilience as the European Union’s priorities for COP31.
Bowen also said a focused, presidency-led decision would be put forward at COP31 to capture the global moment and call for action.
