- Australia must turn its claim to Pacific climate
leadership into concrete action - Governments
urged to end fossil fuel era and deliver scaled up
grants-based climate finance - Amnesty
International launches campaign spotlighting environmental
human rights defenders
As Pacific leaders,
communities and civil society gather in Fiji and Tuvalu for
the Pre-COP31 meetings, the expected absence of many world
leaders must not become another excuse for climate inaction,
Amnesty International said today.
The meetings come
after an unusually hot European summer, with August 2026
becoming the joint-hottest month on record. Against the
looming threat of a powerful El Niño, widespread wildfires,
droughts, and floods, the new UN warning
of the world rapidly breaching warming thresholds adds
urgency to the need for decisive climate
action.
“World leaders have spent years talking
about the climate threats facing the Pacific. Now they must
come to Fiji and Tuvalu, listen to Pacific communities and
act. Rising seas are already eating away at people’s
lands, livelihoods and cultures. Concern without action will
not hold back the tide,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty
International’s Secretary General.
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“Those who do
not show up in person cannot evade their responsibilities.
Their absence will not stop the seas from rising or erase
the obligations of high-emitting countries towards
communities paying the highest price for a crisis they did
least to cause.
“An empty seat is not the greatest
failure. The greater failure is an empty promise. Pre-COP31
must turn years of rhetoric into concrete commitments and
action that deliver the climate ambition the world needs at
COP31 in November.”
Fiji’s Environment Minister
has said that the Pacific-led
summit will proceed “with or without” major world
leaders.
The Pacific is sounding the
alarm
Amnesty International has documented how climate
change is already harming human rights in Tuvalu, Kiribati
and other Pacific Island countries. Rising seas, extreme
heat, droughts and saltwater intrusion are threatening
people’s rights to water, food, health, adequate housing
and a safe future. Tuvalu contributes less than 0.003% of
global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces some of the
climate crisis’ most severe consequences.
During her
visit to Tuvalu in 2025, Agnès Callamard witnessed efforts
by communities and the authorities to reclaim land from the
advancing sea and enable people to remain in their
homeland.
“To any world leader who hesitates to
confront the biggest crisis of our time, I say this: come to
Tuvalu. Speak to people living with rising seas and extreme
heat. Witness their daily struggle to adapt, protect their
rights and push back against the impacts of a climate crisis
they did not cause. The reclaimed land in Tuvalu is not a
tourist backdrop. It represents a country fighting for its
survival,” said Agnès Callamard.
Students
from the Pacific took the fight against climate change
to the world’s top court, leading the International
Court of Justice to issue a landmark Advisory Opinion in
July 2025, which made it clear that governments have a legal
obligation to protect human rights from climate change
impacts.
“The Pacific should not have to plead for
the world’s attention. Climate action is no longer simply
a political choice. It is a legal and moral imperative,”
said Agnès Callamard.
“Governments must end fossil
fuel use and expansion through just transitions that leave
no one behind, tax big polluters and deliver scaled up
grants-based climate finance, providing climate reparations
and ensuring communities on the front lines of the climate
crisis have the resources and power to determine their own
futures. The Pacific is sounding the alarm. If the world
fails to act here, it will fail
everywhere.”
Australia must turn partnership into
action
As President of Negotiations at COP31,
Australia has a particular responsibility to stand with its
Pacific neighbours and secure an ambitious, human
rights-centred outcome. Australia cannot credibly claim
climate leadership while continuing to support fossil fuel
expansion that deepens the harms facing Pacific
communities.
Based on Amnesty
International’s recommendations ahead of COP31,
Australia and other governments must use pre-COP31 to
advance three priorities:
- Stop the
climate crisis at its source by ending fossil fuel
expansion and accelerating a full, fast, fair, funded and
human rights-compliant transition away from fossil fuels
with states most responsible going further and faster.
Renewable energy is less expensive than fossil fuels;
governments must stop supporting their allies in the fossil
fuel industry with tax-payer funded
subsidies. - Support communities to
thrive by ensuring the Just Transition Mechanism is
operational and accountable and can help deliver funding and
support to affected communities, including Indigenous
Peoples. - Scale up finance from high income
high emitting countries where it is needed most by
significantly increasing public, grants-based funding for
mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage, without pushing
lower-income countries further into
debt.
“Pacific leadership has helped keep the
fight for 1.5°C alive, but Pacific communities cannot carry
the burden of global climate leadership alone,” said
Agnès Callamard. “Australia must use its presiding role
to turn Pacific demands into COP31 outcomes, starting with
stopping the crisis at source through a just transition away
from fossil fuels.”
No climate justice without
environmental defenders
Governments cannot deliver
climate justice while excluding affected communities or
silencing those who challenge harmful projects. Across the
world, Indigenous Peoples, environmental human rights
defenders and communities on the front lines of the climate
crisis are resisting fossil fuel expansion and fighting for
fairer, more sustainable futures. Yet many face harassment,
surveillance, criminalization, violence and restrictions on
peaceful protest.
Australia’s treatment of peaceful
climate activists will be an important test of its climate
leadership. There are also concerns about restrictions on
freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in
Fiji.
Ahead of COP31, Amnesty International is
launching a global campaign “Protecting our Future:
Environmental Human Rights Defenders Powering Just
Transitions” spotlighting environmental human rights
defenders and the alternatives they are fighting for around
the world. This includes the First Nations people in
Australia, who are challenging offshore oil and gas
exploration affecting their lands and waters.
The
campaign will show what resistance, dignity and a
people-powered just transition can look like when
communities refuse to see their lands, waters and futures
sacrificed for fossil fuel profits.
Australia and Fiji
must ensure that civil society, Indigenous Peoples, affected
communities and environmental defenders can participate,
speak out and protest peacefully without discrimination,
intimidation or reprisals.
“Environmental defenders
are protecting our shared future. Governments must listen to
them, protect them and ensure they have a meaningful say in
climate decisions,” said Agnès Callamard.
“COP31
must deliver more than promises. Anything less would betray
our shared responsibility to uphold human rights and secure
climate justice.”
Background
- The
Pacific-led pre-COP31 meetings will take place in Nadi,
Fiji, and Tuvalu from 5 to 8 October 2026. COP31 will take
place in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November
2026.
