Essay by Eric Worrall
Only two world leaders from outside the Pacific Region showed up, but those who did show up were really enthusiastic.
Pacific pre-COP a ‘flop’? Australia faces backlash over leaders’ no-show
TCW Report
October 11, 2026Pacific leaders used the Tuvalu meetings to press for faster emissions cuts, easier climate finance and stronger adaptation support despite criticism over the absence of major foreign leaders.
Only two leaders from outside the Pacific attend Tuvalu gathering, but climate finance pledges and regional declaration offer fresh momentum ahead of COP31 in Türkiye.
Australia’s ambitious attempt to bring world leaders face-to-face with the Pacific climate crisis has come under scrutiny after only two leaders from outside the region attended a high-profile gathering in Tuvalu, raising questions over Canberra’s diplomatic expectations ahead of COP31 in Türkiye.
Despite the disappointing leadership turnout, Pacific nations have defended the initiative, pointing to fresh climate finance commitments and a regional declaration aimed at strengthening international action on emissions, adaptation and ocean protection.
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However, the limited participation of foreign heads of state and government has prompted criticism of Australia’s diplomatic strategy and questions about the effectiveness of its high-profile climate gathering.
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Read more: https://theclimatewatch.com/pacific-pre-cop-a-flop-australia-faces-backlash-over-leaders-no-show/
I couldn’t be bothered reading through all the spin, so I asked Claude to analyse what financial commitments were made during the conference.
What finance commitments were agreed in the recent pre-COP Fiji climate conference?
… Seriously Claude if I wanted to read spin I would have searched for the press release …
Can you create a shorter summary of what financial commitments were agreed?
Here’s the short version. No formal agreement was reached, since the Pre-COP doesn’t adopt decisions. The new pledges were:
- About US$15 million to the Pacific Resilience Facility from Fiji, Ireland and others. Fiji’s share is US$10 million. The fund is still well short of its US$500 million target.
- A$3 million from Australia for Pacific climate resilience.
- Australia’s Access to Finance Statement and Action Plan, which aims to cut the red tape that slows money reaching vulnerable communities.
- Fiji’s five-year carbon market plan, designed to attract international climate finance.
The bigger pledging push for the fund is expected at COP31 in Antalya next month.
Source: https://claude.ai/chat/4269eded-a6b7-4dd1-84bb-7577f69b1f9c
In other words, even by the most optimistic reading of the event outcome, the money raised was less than the cost of staging the event. They would have been better just donating the $20 million event cost straight into the Pacific leader slush fund Pacific climate resilience facility.
Still we won’t have too long to mourn this waste of taxpayer funds. While the USA will almost certainly be a no-show at COP31, unless you count California’s constitutionally questionable efforts to provide a stand-in team, political blocks like the EU and maybe even China will likely fling some cash around to keep the party going. Or at least promises of future cash.
Well I didn’t go.
My tickets, flight and accommodation confirmations must still be in the post.
It makes you wonder why I pay tax when I don’t get the perks.
Unless you can produce at least one photo of your attendance at a radical left wing protest with you screaming at police you wouldn’t have qualified for an interested third party ticket.
Can I pick which side of the protest that I’ll be on?
Asking for a friend.
An alternative to that would be to produce a photo of you attending an underwater protest with scuba gear. That’s the ticket!
Will me posing with Greta count? 😉
I can get AI to manufaccture one.
Don’t use the AI that autocorrected your text.
At least they named some beneficiaries of the Climate Change shakedown …. ” Pacific Resilience Facility” and “Pacific climate resilience”. Stay tuned for the new narrative.
My prediction they’re going to try to push sea level rise at COP31, because the climate damage to food supplies narrative is wearing a bit thin.
I’m counting on President Erdogan of Turkey something embarrassing and ignorant at one of the commencement speeches to produce some interest.
Be prepared. My casual review of the PSMSL data suggests that sea level in the Pacific generally has not been rising for at least 5 years, in some places it seems to have dropped.
Quel surpris!
Most of the delegates there would have been thinking –
“I never wanted to do this in the first place.
I always wanted to be –
. . . . “
Fiji currently has a raging HIV epidemic, so there really was no point world leaders showing up to the event.
Well, Bugger me …
Oh, perhaps not in Fiji !!
Has Fiji taken over from Papua New Guinea as the epi-centre of HIV / AIDS in the region?
I don’t know about that but I seriously don’t recommend you take a wander around Suva.
We went into town a few years ago to find a cafe, the cafe owners were frightened for our safety. When we walked out to walk to our cab a guy who had been waiting across the road started crossing to intercept then veered off when he saw my face – my family was with me so I had already decided better to explain afterwards.
I reckon we were minutes away from his crew turning up.
“Fiji currently has a raging HIV epidemic”
No it doesn’t. You know that “HIV” is just as fake as “COVID”, right? Guess who was behind both scams? And no, he wasn’t in it for your health.
How about the moon landings?
Neither Eric nor I said anything about that. Do you have anything useful to say? Or are you just trolling?
Claiming HIV and Covid are fake is perceived as trolling.
The response is where the problems lie.
“perceived as trolling”
By whom? As far as I can tell, only by people who have never looked into the matter in any depth. That’s not my fault.
CNN believes Fiji has an HIV epidemic.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/16/asia/fiji-hiv-emergency-methamphetamine-intl-hnk
And you fell for that? This is WUWT, you know. We don’t take MSM claims at face value around here, do we? Well, some of us don’t.
You mean all the pleasure sites would be closed? 😉
The article reports $18 million pledged and, “The bigger pledging push for the fund is expected at COP31 in Antalya next month.” Right, twice as much and get the total up to $50 million, one-tenth of the targeted $500 million. Sorry about that, but the U.S auto-pen has been decommissioned. COP 31 is shaping up for a likelihood of being a quantum leap… backwards.
Still 2 million short of the published cost of the event.
In climate change shakedown empirical evidence is of course irrelevant.
There is no correlation between global greenhouse gas emissions trend and the Pacific Ocean sea level trend as recorded by the tide gauges from 1905 on Honolulu.
The Pacific Ocean sea level at Honolulu had been rising more or less uniformly for the entire recorded history and probably well before, certainly before greenhouse emissions took off around 1945.
Major greenhouse gas emitters? China? Surely not. 😉
“Investment” implies a return, any investment in the Pacific by China is exclusively strategic.
75%+ of Pacific Islands have either grown or remained stable in land area since WWII.
I’m not sure how they think they can spin that into yet more hand outs, but they’ll try, and idiots like Blackout Bowen will ante up. It’s just a pity it’s not his own money.
I thought it was rising twice as rapidly as everywhere else, the same as they claim for everywhere else. There is nowhere on earth that doesn’t rise twice as quickly as everywhere else.
The pre-COP flop will become the COP31 bomb. Oh, this is gonna be fun.
I love the title of this article. The contents didn’t disappoint either. That’s my day off to a good start.