Overview:
Fifteen Pacific journalists from across the region are on the ground reporting directly from COP31 in Antalya, Turkey. Supported by SPREP, these journalists are bringing critical climate negotiations, regional declarations, and Pacific-led solutions back to island communities. Read full coverage on how Pacific voices are driving action on 1.5°C, climate finance, and ocean governance.
HONIARA, 09 NOVEMBER 2026 (SOLOMON STAR) — Pacific voices in the 31st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN-FCCC) in Antalya, Turkey will be relayed to the people in the islands.
This is being made possible through the support of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) has enabled 15 Pacific journalists to report on the Conference from 9-20 November.
The 15 journalists represent Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Palau, Samoa, Niue, Fiji and New Zealand.
SPREP said the decisions made in Antalya shape the money, rules and emission cuts that decide how safe Pacific communities will be. This is the reason Pacific audiences need reporting on these decisions.
The Pacific heads to Antalya with two declarations, three envoys and a new regional fund already in hand.
The COP31 Pacific Partnership also created three Pacific COP31 Envoys and gives Pacific champions a role in the Action Agenda.
A special session at COP31 will provide a platform for pledges to the Pacific Resilience Facility.
The two Declarations are the Belau Declaration agreed during the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Palau in September and the Taku Pakasoa during the Pre COP in Nadi, Fiji in October.
In the Belau Declaration, Forum leaders called climate change the single greatest threat to Pacific peoples and demanded faster cuts to fossil fuel emissions, much more climate finance and recognition of the ocean as a cli-mate regulator.
It builds on the ICJ advisory opinions and puts the Pacific Resilience Facility at the centre of regional climate finance.
“Taku Pakasoa” is Tuvaluan for strength found in unity, symbolised by a mother-of-pearl necklace. The declaration warns that every fraction of a degree raises the risk of irreversible loss and damage, reaffirms IPCC science, backs community resilience and locally led action, and reaffirms that state-hood and sovereignty continue despite sea-level rise. Tuvalu has invited other countries to associate themselves with it before COP31.
The Pacific’s three focus areas are keeping 1.5°C within reach, getting finance to the people who need it, and giving the ocean its rightful place.
• We must keep the 1.5°C goal within reach to stay alive and thrive. We must minimise the scale and duration of any overshoot as every fraction of a degree matters to PSIDS.
• The IPCC report is the best available science and underpins the 1.5°C goal. This is reaffirmed by the unanimous ICJ Advisory Opinion.
• PSIDS need new, predictable, accessible and scaled-up grants-based finance. To help de-liver this, we call on countries to support the Pacific Resilience Facility and the Access to Fi-nance for SIDS and LDCs Statement and Action Plan.
• The Special Circumstances of SIDS are enshrined in the Paris Agreement. They must be protected and shape access to finance and other Means of Implementation.
• Ocean action outcomes must be mainstreamed across all negotiations. We have the solutions – efforts to save our ocean for the world need climate finance.
COP31 has two parallel discussions taking place.
1. Formal negotiations led by Australia, where more than 60 decisions are on the table, and
2. The Action Agenda led by Türkiye, which gathers voluntary commitments from governments, cities, business and civil society.
Türkiye’s ten Action Agenda priorities are zero waste, oceans and seas, food security, climate-resilient cities, a climate action implementation bridge, youth and education, green industrialisation, clean energy transition and electrification, Rio Convention synergies, and resilient health systems.
Türkiye says COP31 is the first time zero waste has been included in the COP process, with a focus on cutting waste-sector methane, recycling, landfill management and circular economy. Türkiye recycles about 40 percent of its waste under its national Zero Waste Project.
For Pacific islands, where landfill space is scarce and plastics wash ashore, this opens local stories on SPREP’s regional waste work and on Pacific NDCs that already include waste-sector targets, such as Fiji’s and Palau’s.
The Moana Blue Pacific Pavilion itself will be single-use plastic free, with a waste audit at the end of each day.
There are fourteen Pacific Islands Parties to the UNFCCC, also signatories to the Paris Agreement. They are Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
All are members of the Alliance of Small Islands States currently chaired by the Government of Palau. These Pacific Islands also make up the Pacific Small Islands Developing States (PSIDS) which is currently chaired by the Government of Fiji.
Support for our Pacific Islands at COP31 from members of the Council of Regional Organisations of the Pacific (CROP) is through the One CROP mechanism led by the SPREP.
Members of one CROP include: The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) – Lead, Pacific Islands Development Programme, Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, Pacific Island Forum Secretariat, Secretariat of the Pacific Community.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the international treaty for tackling climate change. It was agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and entered into force in 1994. It sets the framework for countries to cooperate on cutting greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate impacts, and it is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the Convention’s top decision-making body. Every country that is a Party is represented, and the COP meets each year to review progress and adopt decisions. It is the only multilateral forum where almost every country on Earth negotiates climate action together.
Türkiye as a host country, holds the COP Presidency (Murat Kurum) and leads the Action Agenda and the World Leaders’ Summit
Australia is the President of Negotiations (Chris Bowen), with exclusive authority over the negotiations from the end of COP30 to the end of COP31, including drafting negotiation texts.
The Conference ends on 20 November…. PACNEWS