Climate summit warns stronger action needed to curb global warming

Countries must urgently scale up their commitments to keep temperature rises within 1.5C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to limit the impacts of extreme weather, a statement from a conference leading up to the UN’s COP31 summit said.

The ministerial meeting, being held in Fiji and Tuvalu, said on Tuesday that “deep, rapid and sustained emissions reductions are required to minimise the magnitude and duration of overshoot” of the target.

“As global temperature increases approach 1.5C and we face strong El Nino conditions, we reiterate that every fraction of a degree of warming accelerates the impacts of climate change and increases the risk of irreversible loss and damage for climate vulnerable communities,” the statement said.

Some Pacific nations face an existential threat from rising sea levels driven by climate change. Tuvalu’s sea levels have risen about 15cm (6 inches) in the three decades to 2023, according to Nasa researchers, twice as fast as the global average.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, governments committed to limit global warming to 1.5C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial period, a threshold the UN’s environmental body warned last month the world would exceed “within a few years”.

The pre-COP31 conference also reaffirmed the importance of continuing sovereignty and the rights of states to maintain maritime zones under international law, even as climate-related sea-level rise threatens to reshape coastlines in the Pacific.

Pre-COP events, preparatory meetings leading up to the United Nations COP31 climate forum in Turkey in November, are typically technocratic meetings of climate negotiators.

Australia and Pacific partners are working together through the COP31 Pacific Partnership to ensure Pacific voices and solutions are at the centre of global climate action, while also seeking to strengthen regional ties ahead of the main summit.