Pacific women and girls bearing the brunt of the climate crisis are demanding governments listen to their lived experiences when making global commitments at a major upcoming conference.
Ahead of COP31, a key summit on climate change to be held in November, leaders are being urged to measure their commitments against humanity rather than economics.
Floods devastating crops, disappearing resources for cultural weaving and economic hardship fuelling gender-based violence, human-driven global warming is particularly taking a toll on women in the Pacific region.
A session on climate change at the Women Deliver conference explored how leaders can better respond to the realities facing women and communities living on the front lines of climate change.
Pacific feminists issued 17 urgent demands for systemic change to protect the future of Pacific people, land and oceans.
The climate crisis and the gender equality crisis were not separate emergencies, but one and the same, Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Penitala Teo said at the session on Wednesday.
“They are the same crisis produced by the same system, a system organised around one logic: colonialism said that this land is not yours, the extractive economy said that these costs are not mine and the patriarchy said that women’s work is not work,” he said.
“The defining injustice of our time is that the people who bear the cost of those decisions were never invited to be part of those decisions.”
The annual climate talks will be held in Turkey but with Australia in a “president of negotiations” role. A pre-COP meeting will be held in the Pacific islands.
Mr Teo admitted there was little optimism to be drawn from the COP process, but it was the only means states had to engage in global climate discussions.
But he said the pre-COP meeting would allow leaders to see firsthand the extent of Pacific nations vulnerability to climate change and sea-level rise.
“What happens between this week and COP31 will certainly determine the fate of women and children,” he said.
“Will they inherit a country or will they inherit just a memory of a country that used to be?”
Human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson was among the team that secured the landmark advisory opinion on climate from the International Court of Justice in 2025.
The advisory determined states have a duty to prevent significant harm to the climate system and ruled that wealthy nations that cause climate change have legal obligations to help nations suffering the impacts.
“It means if Australia continues to approve fossil fuel mines, then there is potentially legal action that could be brought by Vanuatu or other climate-vulnerable nations,” Ms Robinson said.
What was needed now was for frontline communities to bring claims, but Ms Robinson acknowledged they would need funding to back court action.
“If we’re going give this remarkable, historic ICJ decision life, we need to start litigating in our domestic and regional courts and international bodies, but we need to support the communities to be able to bring those cases,” she said.
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