Wealthy countries should spend far more on dealing with the climate crisis than the 5% of GDP promised by Nato members for defence because “the climate issue is the security issue”, the host of the next UN summit has said. But, in comments that are likely to prove contentious, the Cop31 president-designate, Murat Kurum, hedged on whether the world’s countries should try to repeat a previous agreement to “transition away from fossil fuels” – the primary cause of the climate crisis – when they meet in Turkey next month. Kurum, the Turkish climate change minister, told the Guardian the world was “already in a transition” and suggested fossil fuel use could be addressed indirectly through other steps.
Kurum was among national leaders and ministers, officials and civil society members in Fiji this week to prepare for Cop31, which will take place in the Turkish city of Antalya in November. Australia – which has the new role of “president of negotiations” at Cop31 – pushed to hold the pre-Cop meeting in the Pacific to bring attention to island nations. Geopolitical turmoil from war, a historic energy crisis and an unpredictable and climate-denying US administration – combined with the knowledge that many would be attending the main climate summit in a few weeks – meant only 13 national leaders joined Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, in the Fijian city of Nadi, and most were from the Pacific.
But there were also about 30 ministers, including from India and Europe, representatives from big emitters China and Saudi Arabia, the heads of global agencies and about 4,000 other attenders. On Tuesday, a delegation flew north to see Tuvalu, a low-lying atoll country of about 10,000 people that is among the most at risk from the climate crisis. They were shown a 20-hectare (49-acre) land reclamation project and heard stories of life in a country that is mostly only about 2 metres above sea level, and where rising waters, storm surges and intensifying extreme weather pose an accelerating threat to survival.
In a powerful speech, the 13-year-old Melelusi Sokotia told the visitors her friends’ dreams to be “teachers, doctors, builders” were being subsumed by the question of whether they could “grow safely here in Tuvalu”. Back in Nadi, Fiji’s climate minister, Lynda Tabuya, was moved to tears and received a standing ovation during her closing address. She urged delegates to “remember the people you met” and “carry something of the Pacific with you”.
A recent report by the UN environment programme warned that under the most optimistic future, global heating would reach at least 1.8C, well beyond the 1.5C goal of the Paris climate agreement. It called for immediate and sustained emissions cuts and said every fraction of a degree of heating avoided would save lives and reduce economic losses. Through the pre-Cop, Pacific leaders repeated their demands: that countries must act to “keep 1.5C alive”, that climate finance must be easily accessible for the poor and vulnerable who have not caused the problem but are most at risk, and that the health of oceans must be prioritised.
Australia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, said only 0.2% of global climate finance was spent helping small island developing countries adapt, and that the countries that needed it the most, such as Tuvalu, “get it the least”. He said they had promised to increase their defence budgets to 5% of GDP by 2035 as a result of “concerns for their own safety and security”, but had committed much less to addressing the climate crisis despite expressing concerns and it posing an even greater risk. Asked if he thought as much should be spent on climate as defence, he said: “Much more.” “The climate issue is the security issue itself,” Kurum told the Guardian through an interpreter.
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