Apenisa Waqairadovu 
[Photo: File]
Pacific Elders are telling regional leaders that climate demands made a decade ago are now backed by international law.
The Pacific Elders’ Voice has presented its Declaration on Climate Change to the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Palau.
The group is calling on countries to stop subsidising fossil fuels, end new fossil fuel exploration and production licences, and strengthen their national climate commitments.
It is also calling for adaptation finance for Pacific island countries to be provided as grants rather than loans, and for greater funding to address climate-related loss and damage.
The Declaration comes ten years after the Suva Declaration on Climate Change.
Former Kiribati President and Pacific Elders’ Voice Chair Anote Tong says the Pacific’s position has not changed, but the legal basis for its demands has.
The group says the International Court of Justice’s unanimous advisory opinion in July 2025 confirmed that states have binding obligations to protect the climate system.
It says Pacific nations’ sovereignty, statehood and maritime zones must also remain protected despite rising sea levels.
The Declaration comes ahead of the United Nations General Assembly’s high-level meeting on sea-level rise, the pre-COP meeting in Fiji, and COP31.
