“Climate Finance Is Not Charity”: Pacific Islands Confront the World at COP30

As the COP30 Climate Summit opens this week in Belém, Brazil, the Pacific Islands have once again seized the global stage, not as bystanders, but as moral leaders demanding that the world act urgently on climate change.

For the nations scattered across the vast Blue Pacific, where rising seas are swallowing ancestral lands, and stronger cyclones are rewriting coastlines, the fight for the 1.5°C global temperature limit is not a matter of politics. It is a “matter of survival.”

“Fast action and global unity are critical for survival, especially for the world’s most vulnerable island nations,” said UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell in his opening address yesterday, urging leaders to act decisively.

_{UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. Credits: SPREP/Pacifika Environews}

Stiell warned that worsening sea-level rise, prolonged droughts, and intensifying storms are eroding Pacific economies and threatening to displace entire communities. “No nation can afford to wait,” he said.

A Region Speaking as One

At COP30, Pacific leaders, ministers, negotiators, and experts have arrived with a single message, that promises alone will not save their islands. They want action, finance, and justice.

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape was among the first to make that clear. Addressing world leaders, he called for fair climate funding and a stronger commitment to protect tropical forests and oceans, “the planet’s lungs.”

“For Papua New Guinea, climate adaptation and mitigation is not a choice, it is a matter of survival,” Marape said.

_{Marape speaking at the World Leaders Climate Action Summit during COP30 in Belém, Brazil. Credits: NBC.}

Frustrated by empty pledges, Marape boycotted last year’s COP29, describing it as “long on talk and short on action.” His return this year signals renewed hope and pressure on major emitters to deliver.

Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change, Ralph Regan, speaking to Radio Australia Pacific Beat has confirmed he will attend the second week of the COP30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil. His focus will be on the core negotiations and securing outcomes, rather than the high-level events of the opening week.

Minister Regan described his late arrival as a “strategic move” to ensure Pacific interests are represented during the most critical stages of the talks.

“The first week is largely side events and speeches. The negotiations, where outcomes are decided, happen in the second week and often run beyond the official closing. In previous years, Pacific delegations missed these late sessions, which left us sidelined. This year, I will be there to influence the outcomes.”

_{Minister Ralph Regenvanu of Vanuatu. Credits: PINA}

For the Solomon Islands, COP30 represents both a platform and a promise. The country is calling on partners to fully support the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), a Pacific-designed, Pacific-led fund that aims to strengthen climate and disaster resilience across the region.

Speaking at the PRF Partner Roundtable Tok Stori in Belém, Thaddeus Siota, Director of the Climate Change Division, delivered remarks on behalf of Hon. Polycarp Paea, Minister for Environment, Climate Change, Disaster Management, and Meteorology.

“The PRF epitomises our theme, Iumi Tugeda: Act Now for an Integrated Blue Pacific Continent,” Siota said. “It’s about moving from aid dependency to sustainable investment. We want a financing model that empowers communities without creating debt, one that delivers long-term ecological and intergenerational returns.”

The Solomon Islands’ third Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), submitted in August, commits to reducing emissions by up to 34 percent by 2035, through renewable energy expansion and forest protection.

“Climate change is an ever-increasing threat to our wellbeing, economic livelihood, and environment,” Minister Paea said. “We contribute less than 0.0015% of global emissions, yet we are among the first to suffer. That is why climate justice is not a slogan for us — it is a necessity.”

Fiji’s Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Mosese Bulitavu, urged global leaders to demonstrate increased urgency, compassion, and solidarity. This appeal is focused on providing support to communities already experiencing displacement as a result of the escalating impacts of climate change.

Speaking at the “Enabling Positive Adaptation Journeys” at the Climate Mobility Pavilion during COP30 in Belém, Minister Bulitavu said that for Fiji and other small island developing states, climate mobility is no longer a future concern but a present reality.

“Communities are already losing their ancestral lands, livelihoods, and cultural heritage as sea levels rise and coastlines recede,” the Minister said.

“This is not a distant risk. It is the lived experience of our people and it demands a collective and compassionate response.”

Marshall Islands Calls for the ‘COP of Truth’

In a moving open letter to Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, early this month, Marshall Islands President Hilde Heine called COP30 “the COP of truth,” a turning point that must deliver real ambition and accountability.

She reminded President Lula that Brazil helped birth the UN Climate Convention three decades ago, and urged him to revive that legacy.

“Your leadership will be instrumental in determining the road we travel,” Heine wrote. “We must deliver on promises already made and double down on ambition, for everyone’s safety and security, for generations to come.”

The Marshall Islands, which helped forge the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) that enshrined the 1.5°C goal in the Paris Agreement, continues to push the moral argument that small island nations cannot be sacrificed for global inaction.

“Climate Finance Is Not Charity”

From the negotiation halls to the Pacific pavilion, one phrase has echoed through the corridors of COP30: “Climate finance is not charity.”

Coral Pasisi, Director of Climate Change and Sustainability at the Pacific Community (SPC), put it bluntly.

“We have received only 0.33% of the $100 billion promised 16 years ago. Yet we are on the frontline. Climate finance is not charity! We are not asking for handouts, we are asking for justice.”

Her message resonated with delegates, reinforcing that Pacific nations, while small in size, are vast in ocean stewardship, protecting some of the planet’s most critical ecosystems that help regulate the global climate.

Building Pacific Solutions

That determination to act has already reshaped the regional landscape. The Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), a decade-long vision now backed by 15 Pacific countries and an initial investment of USD 500 million, represents a fundamental shift toward self-reliance.

PRF General Manager Finau Soqo said the facility reflects a “different path” for the region.

“Our leaders have made a decision to take control of our own future,” Soqo said. “We serve as the operational force to ensure our people and communities are not overlooked.”

Last week’s Koror Declaration, adopted by Pacific disaster ministers in Palau, further strengthened that momentum. It commits governments to enhancing early warning systems, tackling climate displacement, and investing in local resilience.

A Call the World Can No Longer Ignore

As COP30 unfolds in Brazil, the Pacific message is both urgent and unified, the time for promises has passed.

From Palau to Papua New Guinea, from Honiara to Majuro, and from Port Vila to Tuvalu, Pacific nations are refusing to be silent victims of a crisis they did not cause. Their voices, rooted in oceans, cultures, and courage, are demanding that the world act, not tomorrow, but now.

During the 2021 COP26 climate talks in Glasgow the then Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, in an angry but poised speech said:

“We refuse to be the proverbial canaries in the world’s coal mine, as we are so often called. We want more of ourselves than to be helpless songbirds whose demand serves as a warning to others.”

This story was produced as part of the COP30 Climate Change Media Partnership, a journalism fellowship organized by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security.