1. A Global Response Plan to address the 1.5°C emissions gap

Right now, countries’ new climate pledges — their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) — still fall far short of what’s needed to keep global warming below 1.5°C. If governments don’t step up, the world is on track to blow past this critical limit, with devastating consequences for Australia, the Pacific, and the entire planet. We can’t wait for another review cycle — COP30 must deliver a strong, credible Global Response Plan that drives urgent action.

To kickstart this, world leaders at the start of COP30 need to send a clear message: the energy transition is happening, fossil fuels are on the way out, and closing the emissions gap is non-negotiable.

2. Protect Forests and Biodiversity

Forests are vital for life and climate stability — yet global pledges to protect them are fragmented and weak. COP30 must deliver a five-year Forest Action Plan to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 and bring together all international efforts under one clear roadmap.

Biodiversity and climate are two sides of the same crisis. Addressing one without the other risks harm. COP30 must unite the three Rio Conventions on climate, biodiversity, and desertification so nature and people thrive together.

3. Make Polluters Pay and Fund Climate Action

A lack of finance is blocking progress. COP30 must create a strong accountability plan for the new global climate finance goal — starting with US$300 billion and scaling to US$1.3 trillion — ensuring funds reach First Nations, local communities, and vulnerable nations. Governments must back polluter-pays reforms so big emitters fund real climate solutions, not greenwash.

4. Towards a Pacific-Led COP31

A Pacific COP is a historic opportunity for bold climate leadership. Australia must ensure Pacific voices shape every decision — from closing the 1.5°C gap to phasing out fossil fuels and securing fair finance.

COP31 must also deliver a fast, fair fossil fuel phase-out — turning words into concrete action and signalling the end of coal, oil, and gas.

Why COP30 is critical for Australia and the Pacific

Developing countries hit by extreme weather, rising seas and other climate change impacts have been asked to submit proposals for support from the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) for the first time, three years after its birth at COP27 in Egypt.

Under the debut call for proposals launched at COP30 in Belém, the fund’s board said $250 million would be available for projects seeking to address a wide range of climate-related losses – from damaged infrastructure to the loss of cultural heritage, or community displacement.

Announcing the launch of the fund’s activities, FRLD Co-Chair Jean-Christophe Donnellier said the initial call for funding requests would help “test, learn and shape the fund’s long-term model”. Fellow Co-Chair Richard Sherman said it “sends an important signal to developing countries that support is available”.

Countries will be able to submit their proposals starting in mid-December for six months through to mid-June, with funding approvals beginning in July next year.

Evans Njewa, chair of the Least Developed Countries Group at the climate talks, hailed the call for proposals as “a practical step toward justice, long awaited by communities on the frontlines”, adding that the loss and damage fund “must now deliver fast, simple and accessible support”.

Demand set to outpace resources

Activists fear that could be difficult, however. They say the fund is badly short of resources and will not be able to meet the enormous needs of developing countries.

By 2030, they could require $200 billion-$400 billion a year to address loss and damage caused by storms, droughts, flooding, extreme heat and rising seas made worse by climate change, according to an Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance.

However, developed countries have only pledged $788 million, signed commitments for over $560 million, and actually transferred less than $400 million of that total.

Tax luxury air travel to fund adaptation and loss and damage

Climate activist Harjeet Singh, founding director of India’s Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, said that as climate impacts wreak havoc on countries including the Philippines and Jamaica – where Hurricane Melissa is estimated to have caused up to $7 billion in loss and damage – the FRLD “is starting with a fraction of the scale required”.

Singh said the operationalisation of the fund three years after it was agreed showed it had failed to function as a rapid response mechanism.

He called for the fund to correct its course to match “the scale of the crisis, not the scale of political convenience”.

“The countries and communities facing the worst consequences – those who had no role in causing this crisis – deserve more than an empty shell. This is not climate justice,” Singh said.

Acknowledging the need for more resources to meet the vast scale of need on the ground, Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, the FRLD’s executive director, said the fund will keep working “to mobilise additional resources to support our long-term ambitions”.

Rising call for L&D support in climate plans

Demands for the fund to expand support are reflected in the national climate plans (NDCs) submitted by developing countries to the UN climate body in the run-up to COP30.

South Africa, Vanuatu, Mauritius and Liberia are among those that have laid out demands for loss and damage support from the FRLD, emphasising that climate impacts in their countries have exceeded the limit to which they can adapt.

South Africa – which suffers prolonged droughts, destructive floods and heatwaves – said climate change is already causing “irreplaceable loss”, damaging cultural heritage sites and hurting Indigenous knowledge systems. It is also shrinking farmland, hitting economic growth and worsening health outcomes, including more heat-related illness and deaths, the country said in its NDC.

With support from the FRLD, South Africa plans to improve how the country records and understands the full impact of climate disasters, including collecting detailed information on who is affected, with particular consideration for women and marginalised groups, so that relief and rebuilding programmes can be more effectively targeted, its NDC said.

Climate shocks and volatile currencies hike debt burdens

For Mauritius, climate-related disasters in 2024 caused losses equivalent to 0.07% of gross domestic product (GDP), and the country plans to seek support from the FRLD for recovery and disaster response systems in sectors including agriculture, fishing, housing and health.

The island country said it planned to use the resources to implement a Climate Compensation Fund mechanism to compensate for loss and damage in terms of personal belongings, loss of lives and inability to work due to climate-related disasters. It also plans to improve the country’s disaster response capacity by equipping emergency relief centres with food and other vital supplies.

The inclusion of loss and damage in countries’ NDCs “makes it clear that there is a cost, which must be covered”, said Mattias Söderberg, global climate lead at DanChurchAid, a Danish NGO.

“We can decide if we want to invest in [emissions] mitigation and adaptation, but when it comes to loss and damage, there is no option. When climate-related disasters happen, communities will have to respond,” he added.

The post Climate-hit nations hail loss and damage fund’s debut call for proposals appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate-hit nations hail loss and damage fund’s debut call for proposals

Catherine Abreu is the Director of the International Climate Politics Hub

In a move straight out of the movies, the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Climate Event in September put the two prospective hosts for the 2026 global climate talks, Türkiye and Australia, back-to-back in the speaking order.

Both President Erdogan and Prime Minister Albanese confidently welcomed the world to their countries for COP31. Here at COP30, the drama continues, with the Australian and Turkish Pavilions sitting side-by-side while neither country seems prepared to step back from their bid. Get your popcorn.

Except this isn’t the movies, it’s the UN-led, multilateral process charged with helping us save ourselves from runaway climate change. And, thus far, what has been conspicuously missing from the pseudo-dramatic showdown between these two potential hosts is any meaningful discussion about how either country would aim to use its presidency of the climate talks to accelerate action on climate change, in their own country or globally. The drama, it would seem, has been misplaced.

Any country wanting to host the annual UN summit on climate change should be making the case for doing so based on their climate credentials – and their climate ambition.

While some past COPs may have made us forget this, the energy and intent of current COP President Brazil, and the conversation Brazil’s COP presidency has generated at home about the country’s climate action, serve as useful reminders of what we should be striving for in the host of the climate talks.

It would be disappointing not to have a solid plan in place for COP31 and risk losing the momentum Brazil will hopefully have generated by the end of COP30.

COP host criteria

So, what should we be looking for in a COP host? First, we need a prospective presidency to be clear about the conversations they envisage mediating in the run-up to and during their summit and how those will help us advance a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy and energy efficiency, within the framework of the Paris Agreement.

We need a COP presidency focused on the question of how they can use their platform to help improve countries’ abilities to respond to the impacts of climate change and address the losses and damages they are experiencing.

We need a presidency fully engaged with using their platform to secure commitments to provide the finance countries need to take climate action and respond to climate impacts, while advancing the need to transform global financial systems so that we are tackling the problem of climate change at its core, rather than deepening it.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we need a host ready to commit their COP to being an effective space for negotiating, deliberation and decision making that is free from the undue influence of actors who are there to slow us down.

In other words, is the potential host ready to commit to a COP led by science and traditional and Indigenous knowledge? Are they prepared to ensure transparent accreditation processes that will expose conflicts of interest? And are they prepared and competent to facilitate an effective COP structure so that parties are given the opportunity to have the conversations they need to have, and to land the outcomes they need to achieve, without the influence of anticlimate lobbyists in their midst? If the answers to all of these questions are not a resounding yes, this is not the Presidency we need.

Moreover, a potential COP host should be prepared to use their global platform to substantially advance climate action on the domestic level.

In the case of Australia, that should involve being steered by the wider Pacific leadership on just and equitable transitions away from fossil fuels. As the second largest coal exporter in the world and with a domestic energy mix that includes both fossil fuels and booming renewable energy growth, Australia can and should be aiming to credibly lead conversations on export market transformation and power system transitions to ethical renewable energy and improving energy efficiency.

For Türkiye, affirming a direction of travel away from coal dependency is key. So far Türkiye has been opposed to this both domestically and internationally; indeed, it did not sign up to the tripling renewables pledge at COP28, even though that target was aligned with Türkiye’s own renewable targets, because the text referred to “coal phase-down”. Türkiye moving past its opposition and opening up to a dialogue on a just transition away from coal would be a significant victory for the climate.

There are many reasons a country may want to host the UN climate summit. Foremost among those reasons, and at the heart of the UN process that decides COP hosts, should be the drive to lead national and global conversations that make a real difference in tackling the climate crisis.

The post Climate is MIA in Australia and Turkiye’s bids to host COP31 appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate is MIA in Australia and Türkiye’s bids to host COP31