As rising seas submerge growing swathes of land, countries that lose territory should still keep their national boundaries, sovereign rights and UN membership, according to a political declaration adopted at the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday.
The declaration, which was championed by climate-vulnerable small island states, affirms “the presumption in favour of continued statehood” in the face of sea level rise fuelled by climate change, and urges countries to work together to assist communities affected by encroaching oceans.
Speaking at a high-level UN meeting to address the existential threats posed by sea level rise, Cabo Verde’s Prime Minister Francisco Carvalho, one of the initiative’s co-facilitators along with Australia, said the adoption of the text by consensus sends “a message of hope”.
“This declaration has a very special meaning. For us, sea level rise is neither a distant threat nor a theoretical concern,” he said, adding that rising seas put at risk key infrastructure, water resources and economic growth in small island states.
In the Pacific, sea levels have risen at twice the global rate, dramatically increasing coastal flooding events from two to 20 a year in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and from zero to 102 events per year in American Samoa, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Surangel Whipps Jr., president of the Pacific island of Palau, said the summit in New York represents a “moment of international solidarity”, and highlighted that small island states will remain permanent members of the UN.
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Declaration recognises statehood
An advisory opinion by the world’s top maritime court, the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), first upheld in 2024 that countries do not have to shrink their maritime borders even if they lose land territory due to sea level rise. This was reiterated by the International Court of Justice in last year’s landmark ruling on the climate obligations of states.
The new declaration endorsed by all governments at the UN General Assembly stresses that sea level rise “is not a distant scenario but a real and lived experience for many”, and notes that international law must be implemented in global responses to rising seas.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the “milestone must now be translated into action”, adding that the declaration should encourage an “ongoing dialogue” at the “highest possible level” leading to practical outcomes. Pacific islands have proposed an international treaty on sea level rise that would provide more legal certainty.
“Those on the frontlines must be front and centre on every decision. We cannot allow countries and cultures to vanish beneath the waves,” he said. “The SOS has gone out. The world must answer.”
At regional summit, Pacific islands ask for COP31 support for clean energy and finance
Goodwin Friday, prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, said measures to protect vulnerable states will require adequate finance. “Investing in resilience now is more cost-effective than paying the far greater price for loss and damage later,” he added.
Championed by Australia’s COP31 co-presidency, Pacific islands have sought to put adaptation to sea level rise and ocean conservation at the top of the political agenda by inviting world leaders to attend the pre-COP31 summit co-hosted by Fiji and Tuvalu in October.
Tuvalu will also host the second global fossil fuel phase-out summit in April 2027, after around 60 governments met this year in Santa Marta, Colombia, to discuss ending their dependence on coal, oil and gas.
“Our coastlines, our reefs and our communities are living with the consequences of fossil fuel dependence every day, and our people have earned the right to help shape the way forward,” Lynda Tabuya, Fiji’s climate minister, said in a statement announcing details of the conference.
Ocean monitoring gets a boost in New York
Amid record-breaking marine heat and seas rising at unprecedented speed, governments in New York announced new commitments to protect the world’s ocean, as efforts to bolster marine ecosystems and coastal communities rise up the political agenda.
On Wednesday, the EU and Canada announced more funding for a new Europe-led ocean monitoring system called OceanEye, launched in the aftermath of a failed attempt by the Trump administration to dismantle the largest existing network of deep-sea observatories.
During an event at UN headquarters in New York, EU President Ursula von der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced around $163 million in new funding for the initiative, with the EU pledging €92 million ($105m) on top of existing seed funding and Canada pledging C$82 million (US$58m) over five years.
According to an EU statement, while OceanEye will collaborate with the Global Ocean Observing System, that network “remains vulnerable to financial shortfalls and geopolitical disruptions”. A group of 30 countries from Europe, Africa and the Americas joined an international initiative in support of OceanEye, including large coastal nations like Brazil, Namibia and Mexico.
Von der Leyen said OceanEye “can make us the leading ocean data provider in a matter of years”, including by launching new satellites and installing new observatories in the deep ocean. “From outer space to the deepest ocean, our funding helps us keep watch beneath the waves,” she added.
Carney said the initiative would help protect Canada’s Arctic region with real-time monitoring operating year-round. “We can’t protect what we can’t see,” he said, also highlighting that Canada had expanded conservation of its ocean territory from 1% a decade ago to 15% now.
In New York, a group of 19 countries said they are either developing or implementing plans to sustainably manage all of their ocean territory, with 12 new nations joining the initiative. In a joint communiqué, they called on more countries to sign up ahead of COP31.
Warnings of El Niño-fuelled extreme heat
Scientists and world leaders have raised the alarm over this year’s record-breaking marine temperatures, which have persisted above historical peaks for more than 100 days as the naturally occurring El Niño phenomenon intensifies in the Pacific.
Extreme ocean heat could become a threat to coastal ecosystems and communities, experts fear. Water temperatures 1.5C above normal levels have also rapidly fuelled a strong hurricane in the Pacific in recent days.
Despite scientific calls for additional ocean conservation efforts, a report launched this week in New York warned that efforts to protect ocean ecosystems are lagging behind, with only 10% of the global ocean covered by conservation areas and just 3.5% designated as “effectively protected”.
The post Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood appeared first on Climate Home News.
Threatened by rising seas, small islands secure right to keep their statehood
More than a dozen countries, including Germany, South Korea, Pakistan and several small island states, have publicly backed the Turkish COP31 presidency’s flagship electrification pledge.
The voluntary pledge aims to raise electricity’s share of global final energy consumption to 35% by 2035, from 23% currently, but does not specify how that electricity should be generated.
The COP31 presidency is not expected to publish a full list of backers until next week, as it continues to rally support. But at least 14 countries have publicly endorsed the pledge, according to a Climate Home News analysis of speeches and official statements.
Alongside COP31 co-host Australia and COP32 host Ethiopia, they include Germany, Norway, Finland, South Korea, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, Togo and Liechtenstein, as well as the small island states of Palau, Seychelles and the Solomon Islands.
The European Union is widely expected to join the pledge this week, although member states still need to formally approve the decision, Politico reported. On Wednesday, President Ursula von der Leyen supported the pledge in her personal capacity and encouraged others to do the same.
Major economies still on the fence
Other major economies have welcomed COP31’s focus on electrification while stopping short of endorsing the pledge.
British Prime Minister Andy Burham said on Thursday that he was proud to support the summit’s focus on electrification. He said it matters for energy security, for creating good jobs in clean energy and manufacturing, and for lowering people’s bills.
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Brazil’s environment minister João Paulo Capobianco ssaid on Thursday that electrification was “an important front” in climate action, but warned it should not be pursued “for the sake of it”. It should instead serve as a means of improving efficiency and cutting emissions. He said Brazil would work with the Turkish proposal and suggest adjustments to allow “specific solutions” that reduce emissions, without giving details.
Saudi Arabia was more openly sceptical. Energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told the leaders’ summit that emissions reduction is “what unites us”, “not necessarily the track to achieving it”. “The expansion of electrification does not necessarily mean cutting emissions, so long as we do not consider the sources of its production,” he said, adding that countries’ choices must be respected.
Clean power strings attached
Many of the nations formally backing the initiative have attached some strings to their support. At a high-level roundtable on Wednesday, the low-lying Pacific island nation of Palau said it would sign on to the pledge. But it added that electrification “must not become a substitute or a distraction” from the chief goal of transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Seychelles also endorsed the pledge but added that it must be connected with cleaner electricity. “Electrifying more activities while continuing to burn fossil fuels will not deliver the full economic or climate benefits,” the country’s representative told the roundtable.
Australia’s climate and energy minister Chris Bowen, whose country is co-leading the pledge with Türkiye, has defended its design. “Electrification is almost always a good thing,” he told the Outrage and Optimism podcast recently. He argued that switching to an electric car cuts emissions by 60% even on a coal-fired grid, and by 90% when powered by solar.
Doug Arent, senior fellow at the WRI Polsky Center for the Global Energy Transition, said the most important thing “is that there is significant support for the concept of electrification”. He expects more countries to “recognise their pathway to be behind the 35 by 35” in the coming years.
Calls for finance
Other developing countries backing the pledge have underlined the critical importance of access to finance. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif showed off his country’s people-led boom in rooftop solar and growing rollout of electric vehicles. But he added that “momentum without finance cannot be sustained,” and said the burden of new technologies cannot fall on countries already in debt.
Zimbabwe backed the pledge but warned of the high capital costs and financial bottlenecks facing developing countries. Its representative proposed a global electrification investment facility that would provide first-loss guarantees for projects under Mission 300, an initiative to connect 300 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa to electricity by 2030.
The Solomon Islands, another supporter of the pledge, asked for a dedicated finance access window for small island nations and least developed countries (LDCs).
Tuesday saw the launch of a global finance coalition backed by COP31 host Türkiye and COP32 host Ethiopia aimed at supporting clean electrification in developing countries.
Closing the roundtable, Türkiye’s energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar, who chaired the session, claimed the 35×35 pledge had found broad support worldwide. He called for a “smart” energy transition that draws on all available technologies, including carbon capture, use and storage.
The post COP31’s electrification pledge wins support, with caveats on clean power and finance appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP31’s electrification pledge wins support, with caveats on clean power and finance
Climate Change
Albanese must deliver credible action to end fossil fuel chokehold, not just rhetoric
ANTALYA,Türkiye, Thursday 12 November 2026 — In response to Prime Minister Albanese’s COP31 Leaders’ Summit address, Shiva Gounden, Head of Pacific at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, speaking from Antalya said:
“Prime Minister Albanese’s COP31 address was full of nice rhetoric, but once again failed to confront or even mention the root cause of the climate crisis — fossil fuels.
“In Antalya, UN climate chief Guterres told leaders to “tell the truth”. The truth is Australia can not credibly talk about its clean energy transition while continuing to expand the industry it needs to leave behind. Australia must reckon with reality; its damning track record of 38 coal and gas approvals since it took office in 2022.
“We meet in Antalya amidst a global energy shock and dire projections of 1.5°C overshoot. Overshoot means something in the Pacific — it means irreversible harm, lives and cultures lost forever, entire nations at stake. We must face the fierce urgency of now.
“Never before has the need to end the fossil fuel chokehold been so abundantly clear, as our Pacific communities again suffer the consequences of a global economy hooked on coal, oil and gas. The Pacific needs credible roadmaps and clear timelines to unhook from fossil fuels — Australia can’t keep saying implementation and not reflect it with credible action.”
ENDS
COP31 images and video available here in Greenpeace Media Library
Media contact: Kate O’Callaghan in Antalya (GMT+3) on +61 406 231 892 (Whatsapp/Signal)
Albanese must deliver credible action to end fossil fuel chokehold, not just rhetoric
A second set of world leaders give their speeches on Thursday before heading out of town and leaving their negotiators to it. After around 40 leaders spoke on Wednesday, today there will be just 25 or so including the UK’s Andy Burnham, Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez and Bangladesh’s Tarique Rahman.
But Brazil’s President Lula is still there and is expected to keep grabbing headlines, along with California’s Governor – and maybe next US president – Gavin Newsom – and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg who has lost none of her star power, if the crowd around her in the press centre was anything to go by.
We’ll bring you highlights through the day on issues ranging from finance to methane, and update you on a pledging event for the Pacific Resilience Facility, which the climate-vulnerable region is relying on to keep small island nations as safe as possible in the face of intensifying storms, drought and sea level rise.
The post COP31 Bulletin Day 4: Burnham speaks with UK climate policy under fire appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP31 Bulletin Day 4: Burnham speaks with UK climate policy under fire
COP31’s electrification pledge wins support, with caveats on clean power and finance
Albanese must deliver credible action to end fossil fuel chokehold, not just rhetoric
