As the dust settles on the deal struck between Australia and Türkiye over next year’s COP31 climate summit, what does this mean for the Pacific? The island states, not part of the Western Europe and Other Group of the United Nations, were never eligible to host the summit independently. Australia had offered a co-hosting arrangement to put Pacific priorities at the centre of the talks, but with Türkiye now confirmed as host and Australia only steering the formal negotiations, that possibility has narrowed.
The arrangement places Türkiye in charge of the Action Agenda, the space for voluntary coalitions and high-profile pledges that some observers regard as the real engine of progress when formal negotiations stall. Without Australia at the helm of the full agenda alongside Pacific nations, the influence of the region risks being diminished at a critical moment to act as climate impacts intensify.
Even so, the Pacific retains important openings. Australia has secured agreement for a pre-COP meeting to take place in the Pacific, which world leaders will be invited to attend. Although such an event will not command the global spotlight of the main event, it still offers a meaningful platform to place the region’s priorities directly in front of international decision-makers. COP31 in Türkiye will also feature a dedicated session on the climate finance needs of Small Island Developing States.
A rare moment of concentrated global diplomatic attention on the Pacific could secure significant contributions.
The decision is still fresh, and many details of this hurried compromise are yet to be worked out. So far, what is clear is an emphasis on fundraising for the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF). The PRF is a region-owned fund that has been years in the making, now formally established, and focused on community-level climate and disaster resilience across the region. It has struggled to reach its capitalisation target of US$500 million, having secured only around US$167 million to date.
The fund is poised to become an important mechanism for reaching communities directly. But it’s not everything the region wants or needs. The PRF seeks modest sums in global terms, and a rare moment of concentrated global diplomatic attention on the Pacific could secure significant contributions. A further question however is whether Australia – already the largest donor with a US$63 million pledge – will now be expected to increase its own contribution with the hope to bring others along.
But COP31 should be about more than landing pledges. Under what Australia envisaged for the summit had it been hosted in Adelaide, Pacific leaders would have had the opportunity to shape the global debate on issues stretching well beyond a single regional fund. That opportunity now looks smaller, but it has not disappeared. Australia and the Pacific should resist a sole focus on the PRF and instead concentrate on where substantive gains – for the region and the global system – remain possible.
Reforming the global climate finance architecture, in which the PRF will ultimately be only a small player, should top the list. Pacific Island countries rank among the world’s most climate-vulnerable yet face some of the steepest barriers to securing adaptation funding. Pushing for reforms that serve Small Island Developing States and other climate-vulnerable countries is one of the clearest avenues for Pacific influence. This could involve efforts to streamline access procedures across multilateral funds and even fold together funds with overlapping mandates, so that increasingly scarce resources are delivered faster and with fewer administrative hurdles.
A further priority should be protecting adaptation finance from being squeezed out as public funds increasingly focus on mobilising private capital. Adaptation is already chronically underfunded relative to mitigation and rarely generates financial returns, particularly in the most vulnerable countries. Private investment is unlikely to help. COP30 made some headway by securing an agreement to triple adaptation funding from wealthy countries by 2035, but maintaining the momentum and delivering on this as public budgets tighten is far from certain.
The hosting deal has altered the stage, but not the stakes. With the right strategy this new arrangement can still allow the Pacific to shape the outcome of COP31.
