At a key leaders’ summit in Palau, Pacific island nations burdened by worsening climate change impacts and costly fossil fuel imports called for November’s COP31 climate summit to deliver finance to help the region transition to renewable energy and build more resilient communities.

Heads of government from the 18-member Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – which includes COP31 co-president Australia – met in Palau’s capital Koror for a week-long summit, where they demanded access to climate finance, ocean action and a regional boost for renewables at COP31.

Palau’s president Surangel Whipps Jr. said during a plenary session that the Pacific must focus on delivering climate and ocean commitments. “It will require greater regional leadership, stronger regional coordination and, above all, unity of purpose,” he said.

The meeting, which ended last Friday, was marked by the absence of some leaders – among them the heads of state of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji, which will host a preparatory session for COP31 in October (referred to as the pre-COP31). There were also tensions over Taiwan’s participation, with China objecting to its presence as an observer.

The forum’s final declaration, published after it ended and signed by all its members, reaffirms that climate change is the “single greatest threat to the security, livelihoods and wellbeing of Pacific peoples”, and notes “the importance of a focused, high-level declaration” at the pre-COP31 to build “political momentum towards COP31”.

Australia and Pacific islands have invited world leaders to attend the pre-COP31 gathering, which will be held in Fiji and Tuvalu from October 5 to 8. While usually a technical meeting for negotiators, the island nations aim to issue a political declaration at the gathering calling for strong outcomes in Türkiye.

Chris Bowen, Australia’s climate minister and COP31 president of negotiations, said in a speech during the Pacific forum that his country is “determined to use COP31 to progress the agenda to make it easier for countries to access the climate finance they need”.

“We won’t miss the opportunity to ensure COP31 is a Pacific COP. Not just because of the location of pre-COP but because of the agenda we are shaping through the Action Agenda at COP31,” he said.

The Action Agenda is a large portfolio of climate initiatives and coalitions uniting governments, businesses and civil society outside of the formal negotiations on everything from health to methane emissions.

Renewable energy investment plan

Announced a year ago, the island nations launched a $14-billion investment plan for a “100% Renewable Blue Pacific” at the forum in Palau. The plan lists strategic projects that would reduce the region’s high dependence on fossil fuel imports, whose soaring costs have become a major burden since the Iran war.

The projects include a $52-million programme managed by Australia to develop off-grid renewables in remote communities across the Pacific, as well as a $100-million blended finance fund aimed at supporting private-sector investments in wind and solar, among others.

Currently, some countries in the Pacific are spending up to a quarter of their GDP importing diesel to power electricity generation, according to a new report by the University of New South Wales in Australia. The investment plan launched at the forum aims to reduce these costs by adding 2.2 gigawatts of renewable generation and around 9 gigawatt hours of electricity storage.

To channel funds into the region, the plan also highlights the role of the recently established Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), a regional fund that seeks to swiftly disburse funds to climate-vulnerable communities at the local level. Bowen said he would promote the facility to world leaders attending COP31 and “ask for their support”.

Call to transition away from fossil fuels

Separately, the forum endorsed the Belau Declaration which emphasises the need to keep the 1.5C Paris Agreement temperature goal alive. A UN report last week showed that overshooting this limit is now inevitable, but deep emissions cuts could still bring global temperatures back down by the end of the century.

Pacific nations expect to rally support for this declaration at the pre-COP, with Fiji’s climate minister Lynda Tabuya saying in a statement: “Palau is where we build the political mandate. Pre-COP is where we take it to the world.”

The political declaration also says that countries must accelerate the global transition away from fossil fuels “towards a renewable energy future”, and calls for greater recognition of the importance of ocean health in addressing climate change.

UN sets out narrow path back to 1.5C warming after inevitable overshoot

As part of the forum’s outcomes in Palau, countries also noted Tuvalu’s efforts to host the second global conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels, which will gather government representatives in April next year to follow up on this year’s inaugural conference in Santa Marta, Colombia.

Speaking to journalists at the forum, Vanuatu’s climate minister Ralph Regenvanu questioned Australia’s role in talks about phasing out fossil fuels at COP31, adding that “the very least a country like Australia should be doing is stopping future expansion, and it’s not doing that”. During the PIF, the country approved the extension of a major mine that digs and exports coal for steel-making, giving it permission to keep producing until 2055.

Rising seas trigger “development emergency”

As leaders met in one of the world’s regions most threatened by sea-level rise, UN Secretary-General António Guterres released a new report warning that rising seas are now “one of the most profound threats to populations around the world in developed and developing states alike”.

Presenting the report at UN headquarters in New York, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development Navid Hanif said rising sea levels are not a “future risk any more” but an accelerating “development emergency” that could hinder progress in vulnerable regions like the Pacific and least developed countries.

The report warns that seas are rising “faster than at any point in recorded history”, with 2024 setting a new record of 5.9 millimetres. This has been driven by human-induced climate change mainly through a process known as thermal expansion – where rising heat causes the ocean to expand – as well as the melting of ice sheets.

Pacific islands seek backing for new regional fund ahead of COP31

The report notes that about 1.2 billion people around the world are exposed to coastal flooding, and says some low-lying islands in Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Fiji are already facing forced relocations. Globally, rising seas could cost more than $1 trillion every year by 2050, it adds.

“We cannot stop sea level rise this century but we can determine how much worse it becomes. About half a metre of sea level rise is already locked in in this century because of warming that has already occurred, but beyond that our choices matter enormously,” Hanif told journalists.

Bill Hare, CEO of think-tank Climate Analytics, said the report was a “wake-up call” to the leaders of high-emitting countries that their failure to cut carbon emissions is “creating major risks for the future alongside the impacts we can already observe around us”.

Guterres is set to host a high-level meeting on addressing the threat of sea level rise this month during the UN General Assembly, where countries are expected to adopt a declaration that calls for stronger action, expanded access to finance and “ongoing dialogue” to tackle the issue.

The post At regional summit, Pacific islands ask for COP31 support for clean energy and finance appeared first on Climate Home News.

At regional summit, Pacific islands ask for COP31 support for clean energy and finance

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza during the conflict that broke out in October 2023 has wrecked progress towards adapting the enclave to climate change and left two million Gazans vulnerable to heatwaves, drought and disease, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said in a new climate plan submitted to the United Nations.

Palestine’s third nationally determined contribution (NDC), uploaded to the UN climate body’s website this week, says that while “the aggression on the Gaza Strip did not make the climate worse”, “it removed the housing, water and sanitation systems, health facilities, energy networks, roads and livelihoods through which people absorb a climate they were already struggling with.”

The 91-page document lists the types of infrastructure it says Israel has destroyed and notes how the destruction will worsen the impacts of climate change. It says the bombing of hospitals and rising hunger have make it harder for Gazans to cope with the health impacts of climate-driven heatwaves and waterborne diseases.

On beaches of Gaza and Tel Aviv, two tales of one heatwave

The destruction of water tanks, boreholes and desalination plants, meanwhile, have left Gazans struggling with the effects of water shortages and drought, while mass unemployment reduces people’s ability to afford climate-driven price rises. The erasure of most of the Strip’s homes makes it more difficult for people to avoid the sun’s increasing heat, the NDC said.

Many Gazans are now living in the ruins of collapsed buildings or in makeshift shelters and tents that offer little or no protection from high temperatures.

Palestine’s previous goals to cut emissions and adapt to climate change in Gaza, expressed in its last NDC five years ago, were based on a pre-war baseline that “no longer describes anything that exists”, the NDC says. Progress made since 2021 has now been destroyed, it adds.

Green reconstruction of Gaza

Instead of continuing to aim for these adaptation and emissions-reduction goals, the PA is now calling for the green reconstruction of Gaza. It says buildings should be constructed again in an energy-efficient manner with solar panels and served with modern water, waste and transport systems.

While the PA, controlled by the Fatah political party, continues to claim legitimate control of Gaza, the strip was effectively governed by Fatah’s rival Hamas between 2007 and the recent war. Control is now split between Israel and the political wing of Islamist militant group Hamas, after a US-backed ceasefire took effect in October 2025, although a UN-backed committee plans to take over.

The United Nations, European Union and World Bank have jointly estimated that Gaza needs $71.4 billion of investment in the next two years to recover and build back. This process should be Palestinian-led, they said in April.

But US President Donald Trump has said the US should “take over” and “own” Gaza and redevelop it as the “Riviera of the Middle East”. Israel’s right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel should control the territory with civil administration managed by Palestinians favourable to Israel.

With occupation, targets conditional

In the other part of Palestine, the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority carries out some government functions, but ultimate control rests with Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

Because Israel controls planning in most of the West Bank, the NDC argues that the PA cannot pursue all the climate projects it wants. In addition, Israel restricts the movement of PA officials, making data collection difficult, and controls the West Bank’s electricity supply meaning that the PA cannot control whether it comes from dirty or clean sources of energy.

Given this situation, the NDC says that all of Palestine’s new climate targets are conditional but it will aim to reduce emissions 12.8% below a business-as-usual baseline by 2035 and 17.1% by 2040. If the Israeli occupation ends and Palestine regains full sovereignty over its land and resources, it will aim for reductions of 15.1% and 19.1% by 2035 and 2040 respectively under an “independence pathway”.

That could allow, for example, for greater electrification and reducing emissions per unit of growth, the document said.

To achieve the 2035 emissions-reduction target and adapt to the impacts of climate change, the PA says it needs $8.6 billion in total. This funding would be spent on measures like encouraging solar farms and rooftop solar and scaling up solar water heating to cover four-fifths of households. To complement the planned increase in solar power, the authority wants to modernise the electricity grid and install battery storage.

In the transport sector, it aims to promote the uptake of electric vehicles, develop bus rapid transit corridors and scrap old polluting trucks and buses. In Gaza in particular, it wants to deploy 66 electric buses when the conflict ends.

To adapt to climate-driven drought, the NDC includes initiatives to reuse wastewater through treatment plants, build desalination plants in Gaza to remove salt from seawater, and promote irrigation for farmers.

The new climate plan was prepared by Palestine’s Environment Quality Authority, with support from the United Nations Development Programme and the governments of Britain and Spain.

The United Nations recognised Palestine’s statehood in 2012 and it joined the UN’s climate convention and signed the Paris climate agreement – which requires countries to submit more ambitious NDCs every five years – in 2016.

The Israeli foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment. But in late 2024, then Israeli climate envoy Gideon Behar told Climate Home News that the war and the resulting environmental destruction in Gaza was the fault of Hamas.

The post Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change appeared first on Climate Home News.

Palestine: Israel’s bombing has left Gaza vulnerable to climate change

Solar power generation in the UK reached a new record over the summer of 2026, as temperatures across the nation soared, according to new analysis by Carbon Brief.

Collectively over June, July and August, solar farms and rooftops generated 8.8 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in the UK*, as shown in the chart below.

Speaking to Carbon Brief, Chris Hewett, chief executive of trade association Solar Energy UK welcomed the new record, adding that it was driven by “clear skies and continued growth in deployment”.

This surge in generation took place amid the hottest summer on record in the UK, with five heatwaves between May and August.

Summer 2026 was the sixth sunniest on record, with more than 620 hours of sunshine, according to the Met Office. England and Wales – which experienced the most extreme heat – saw their second-sunniest summers on record.

June 2026 was the hottest June in England since records began in 1884, according to Met Office data, while Wales and the UK as a whole experienced their second-warmest June.

It was the driest July for England and Wales since records began in 1836, with some parts of London seeing no rain at all in the month, while Wisley in Surrey had no rain for 62 days.

In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August.

According to the Met Office, this summer’s record mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by climate change.

Amid these hot and sunny months, solar power generation increased 23% from the same period in 2025. This is double the level of solar generation over the summer of 2021, according to Carbon Brief analysis.

While solar panels can be affected by periods of extreme heat, the longer hours of daylight and higher levels of irradiation over the summer more than offset any efficiency losses.

June, July and August all saw solar set new monthly records for solar generation – July saw the highest solar generation in a calendar month ever, with 3.3TWh meeting 15% of overall electricity demand for the month.

As of the end of August, the total UK solar generation in 2026 stood at 17TWh – 13% higher than the same point in 2025.

The number of solar farms and rooftop installations has grown substantially in recent years, helping to boost generation. Domestic rooftop solar accounts for around 29% of total capacity.

In 2025, the UK’s solar capacity reached 21 gigawatts (GW) by the third quarter of the year, according to UK government figures. This is a jump of 3GW, or 18%, year-on-year, as Carbon Brief reported in January.

(Capacity is the maximum output possible from an electricity generation, whereas generation is what was produced over a certain time period, such as a day, month or year.)

According to the University of Sheffield, the installed solar capacity is now nearly 24GW.

This includes nearly 172,000 solar installations that have been fitted across the UK since the start of 2026, according to recent government figures. In July alone, more than 19,800 rooftop solar panels were installed – the equivalent of one installation every two minutes.

In total, nearly 1.7m households in the UK now have solar panels installed.

Over 26 heatwave days this summer – periods of at least three days when temperatures exceed the Met Office’s county-level heatwave temperature threshold – UK households with rooftop solar panels avoided an estimated £86.7m in electricity costs, according to analysis by Utility Bidder.

Talking about the surge in solar generation this summer, Hewett says:

“[It] not only kept bills down for people with solar and batteries in their homes, but helped keep overall power prices much lower than they would have been if Britain had been relying on more gas generation during the day”.

Despite the record generation, no new half-hourly solar power output record was set in the summer of 2026. This still stands at 15.2 megawatts (MW) on 23 April 2026.

* This article refers to the UK throughout, but strictly relates to the island of Great Britain, made up of England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is part of the separate, all-Ireland electricity system.

related

Factcheck: 10 flaws in the Conservative report on ‘cheap power’

20.08.2026

Renewables

Q&A: What is ‘long-duration energy storage’ – and why does the UK need it?

19.08.2026

Electricity

Q&A: What does China’s 15th ‘five-year plan’ for renewables mean for climate change?

29.07.2026

China policy

Analysis: Wind and solar power overtake fossil fuels in Germany for first time ever

28.07.2026

Energy

The post Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026 appeared first on Carbon Brief.

Analysis: UK solar power hits record high over summer 2026