* 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.

The Pacific is sounding the alarm

Amnesty International has documented how climate change is already harming human rights in Tuvalu, Kiribati and other Pacific Island countries. Rising seas, extreme heat, droughts and saltwater intrusion are threatening people's rights to water, food, health, adequate housing and a safe future. Tuvalu contributes less than 0.003% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces some of the climate crisis' most severe consequences.

During her visit to Tuvalu in 2025, Agnès Callamard witnessed efforts by communities and the authorities to reclaim land from the advancing sea and enable people to remain in their homeland.

"To any world leader who hesitates to confront the biggest crisis of our time, I say this: come to Tuvalu. Speak to people living with rising seas and extreme heat. Witness their daily struggle to adapt, protect their rights and push back against the impacts of a climate crisis they did not cause. The reclaimed land in Tuvalu is not a tourist backdrop. It represents a country fighting for its survival," said Agnès Callamard.

Students from the Pacific took the fight against climate change to the world's top court, leading the International Court of Justice to issue a landmark Advisory Opinion in July 2025, which made it clear that governments have a legal obligation to protect human rights from climate change impacts.

"The Pacific should not have to plead for the world's attention. Climate action is no longer simply a political choice. It is a legal and moral imperative," said Agnès Callamard.

"Governments must end fossil fuel use and expansion through just transitions that leave no one behind, tax big polluters and deliver scaled up grants-based climate finance, providing climate reparations and ensuring communities on the front lines of the climate crisis have the resources and power to determine their own futures. The Pacific is sounding the alarm. If the world fails to act here, it will fail everywhere."

Australia must turn partnership into action

As President of Negotiations at COP31, Australia has a particular responsibility to stand with its Pacific neighbours and secure an ambitious, human rights-centred outcome. Australia cannot credibly claim climate leadership while continuing to support fossil fuel expansion that deepens the harms facing Pacific communities.

Based on Amnesty International's recommendations ahead of COP31, Australia and other governments must use pre-COP31 to advance three priorities:

1. Stop the climate crisis at its source by ending fossil fuel expansion and accelerating a full, fast, fair, funded and human rights-compliant transition away from fossil fuels with states most responsible going further and faster. Renewable energy is less expensive than fossil fuels; governments must stop supporting their allies in the fossil fuel industry with tax-payer funded subsidies.

2. Support communities to thrive by ensuring the Just Transition Mechanism is operational and accountable and can help deliver funding and support to affected communities, including Indigenous Peoples.

3. Scale up finance from high income high emitting countries where it is needed most by significantly increasing public, grants-based funding for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage, without pushing lower-income countries further into debt.

"Pacific leadership has helped keep the fight for 1.5°C alive, but Pacific communities cannot carry the burden of global climate leadership alone," said Agnès Callamard. "Australia must use its presiding role to turn Pacific demands into COP31 outcomes, starting with stopping the crisis at source through a just transition away from fossil fuels."

No climate justice without environmental defenders

Governments cannot deliver climate justice while excluding affected communities or silencing those who challenge harmful projects. Across the world, Indigenous Peoples, environmental human rights defenders and communities on the front lines of the climate crisis are resisting fossil fuel expansion and fighting for fairer, more sustainable futures. Yet many face harassment, surveillance, criminalization, violence and restrictions on peaceful protest.

Australia's treatment of peaceful climate activists will be an important test of its climate leadership. There are also concerns about restrictions on freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly in Fiji.

Ahead of COP31, Amnesty International is launching a global campaign "Protecting our Future: Environmental Human Rights Defenders Powering Just Transitions" spotlighting environmental human rights defenders and the alternatives they are fighting for around the world. This includes the First Nations people in Australia, who are challenging offshore oil and gas exploration affecting their lands and waters.

The campaign will show what resistance, dignity and a people-powered just transition can look like when communities refuse to see their lands, waters and futures sacrificed for fossil fuel profits.

Australia and Fiji must ensure that civil society, Indigenous Peoples, affected communities and environmental defenders can participate, speak out and protest peacefully without discrimination, intimidation or reprisals.

"Environmental defenders are protecting our shared future. Governments must listen to them, protect them and ensure they have a meaningful say in climate decisions," said Agnès Callamard.

"COP31 must deliver more than promises. Anything less would betray our shared responsibility to uphold human rights and secure climate justice."

END

Background

* The Pacific-led pre-COP31 meetings will take place in Nadi, Fiji, and Tuvalu from 5 to 8 October 2026. COP31 will take place in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026.

* Contact: press@amnesty.org for arranging interviews or for copy of the briefing: "Protecting our Future: Environmental Human Rights Defenders Powering Just Transitions"

For more information please call Amnesty International's press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566 or +44 (0)77 7847 2126

email: press@amnesty.org

twitter: @amnestypress

International Secretariat, Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW, UK