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.
“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
.
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 a
