Sāmoa climate activist tells leaders: You now have a responsibility to act for our aiga, future

Sāmoan climate advocate Brianna Fruean has told Pacific leaders they cannot leave the region with only speeches and promises.

The New Zealand-based young environmentalist challenged the region's decision-makers to turn the welcome they received in Fiji and Tuvalu this week into action on climate finance, emissions, and the protection of 1.5°C.

Addressing the Pacific Pre-COP31 Leaders’ Plenary in Denarau, Fruean said leaders had arrived as guests but should leave carrying responsibility for the Pacific communities and children they had met.

“In the Pacific, we pride ourselves in our hospitality. You come as guests and leave as family. You now hold responsibility to these lands.

"The responsibility to ensure accessible climate financing, to nourish the adaptation, mitigation, and resilience measures of communities on these front lines,” Fruean said.

The 28-year-old said Pacific hospitality was not simply ceremony, but came with obligations.

Delegates attend the Pacific Pre-COP31 Leaders’ Plenary in Nadi, where Pacific priorities are being put forward ahead of COP31 in Türkiye. Photo/Pacific Islands Forum

“What might look like performance to you is actually practice. It is ceremony. By receiving its nourishment, the land now lives in us. In turn, you now hold responsibility to these lands.”

Fruean also called for the Pacific Ocean and its marine ecosystems to be placed at the centre of global climate action.

“So much of our song and dance is in reverence of our great blue Pacific Ocean. By swaying along to its song, you now hold responsibility to it. The responsibility of placing our ocean and marine ecosystems at the centre of global climate strategies and solutions,” she said.

Sāmoa’s Deputy Prime Minister Mulipola Anarosa Ale Molio'o addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where she called for easier access to climate finance for vulnerable countries. Photo/Pacific Islands Forum

Her message comes as Pacific governments push for easier access to climate finance ahead of COP31. Sāmoa is among those calling for changes to the global financial system.

Sāmoa’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Mulipola Anarosa Ale Molioo, told the UN General Assembly last month that climate finance needed to reach vulnerable countries more directly.

“Climate finance is the bridge between ambition and action. It must be scaled up, easily accessible, devoid of burdensome conditions and responsive to the needs of the most climate vulnerable,” she said.

She also warned against Pacific countries having to take on more debt to respond to climate impacts they did little to cause.

“Small nations are being asked to finance both development and survival. No nation should have to borrow its way out of a crisis it did so little to create.”

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown also delivered a similar message during the Pacific leaders’ visit to Tuvalu and called for faster action from climate finance agencies and major emitters.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown speaks at the Pacific Pre-COP31, calling for faster climate finance and support for Pacific-led solutions. Photo/Office of the Prime Minister, Cook Islands

“Today, we ask the same urgency of our partners. Because urgency is a two-way street,” Brown said.

Fruean brought that same focus back to Pacific families and children, urging leaders not to forget the young people they had seen during their time in Tuvalu and Fiji.

“In the islands, all the children are our children. They belong to us. I hope you never forget their faces. I hope you see their faces when you go home. See them in your children,” she said.

She said children were among those facing the greatest risks from climate change.

“1.1 billion children face at least three overlapping climate hazards, threatening health, education, and survival. As they learn to count, we are counting the degrees that determine their future,” she said.

Fruean said the Pacific’s message on the 1.5°C target had not changed. “1.5 to stay alive remains our mantra. You now bear the responsibility of protecting 1.5, and this requires immediate emissions reductions.”

Pacific and international leaders visit Tuvalu during the Pre-COP31 Leaders’ event, seeing first-hand the country’s climate adaptation work, including the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project. Photo/Fiji government

The call for faster emissions cuts comes as Pacific climate advocates welcome an Australian High Court ruling requiring the climate impacts of exported coal to be considered in assessments of fossil fuel projects.

350.org Pacific and Caribbean Program Manager, Fenton Lutunatabua, said Australia needed to carry that momentum into COP31.

“As Australia heads into COP31 as Head of Negotiations, they cannot afford to lose the momentum from this decision in their journey to true climate leadership,” he said.

With Pacific leaders preparing to endorse the Taku Pakasoa Declaration ahead of COP31 in Türkiye, Fruean said the meeting needed to result in action.

“Your time here isn't just a conference. It is a ceremony, a welcoming of responsibility to take care of your Pacific family,” she said.

Brown said Pacific countries already had solutions and needed the finance to put them into action.

“Back Pacific leadership with the finance so we can get on with our solutions. Deliver the emissions reductions needed now, so that my descendants can stand on the shores of Funafuti, as I have today,” he said.

She said Pacific unity also meant being willing to question and hold each other accountable.

“In a Pacific family, we will ask questions. We will disagree, discuss, hold each other accountable, but always to find a way forward,” she said.

“You arrived here as guests, welcomed as friends and comrades, but now let us continue as family, carrying this responsibility together and turning it into long-overdue action.”

The Pre-COP31 discussions in Tuvalu and Fiji end on Thursday. COP31 kicks off in Türkiye in November.