Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape told journalists it’s an issue of morality. “Nations who have sovereign borders are facing the threat of being nations no more,” he said. “We live with the burden of decisions made elsewhere.”
EU climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra told journalists, “We’re clearly not doing enough”. A UN report released in August found that developing countries need 310-365 billion USD to adapt, but in 2023 had only 26 billion available.
Regional leaders have set up the Pacific Resilience Facility in hopes of raising 500 million USD, but so far it has brought in commitments for less than half of that. On Wednesday Fiji pledged an additional 10 million USD to the fund.
Fiji's Climate Minister Lynda Tabuya called on COP31 to restructure and simplify the process for distributing money for climate solutions. "It’s frustrating. We emit the least gases in the Pacific, and yet we’re the most disproportionately affected,” Tabuya said.
The Australian government said Wednesday that it would invest 2 million USD in a number of regional road and communications infrastructure projects in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Kiribati, and Tuvalu to help those countries "adjust to climate change, particularly focused on the coastlines with erosion and rising sea levels.”
