Samoan youth climate advocate Brianna Fruean has challenged Pacific leaders to turn the hospitality and welcome they received in Tuvalu and Fiji into action on climate finance, emissions cuts and the protection of the 1.5°C target.
Addressing the Pacific Pre-COP31 Leaders’ Plenary in Denarau, Fruean told leaders they had arrived as guests but should leave understanding their responsibility to Pacific communities and future generations.
“In the Pacific, we pride ourselves in our hospitality. You come as guests and leave as family.
“You now hold responsibility to these lands. The responsibility to ensure accessible climate financing, to nourish the adaptation, mitigation, and resilience measures of communities on these front lines,” Fruean said.
Fruean said Pacific hospitality was not simply ceremony or performance but carried obligations for those who received it.
“What might look like performance to you is actually practice. It is ceremony,” she said.
She said the food, culture and traditions experienced by leaders during their visit were connected to the land and ocean and should reinforce their responsibility to protect them.
“By receiving its nourishment, the land now lives in us. In turn, you now hold responsibility to these lands,” she said.
Fruean also called for Pacific marine ecosystems to be placed at the centre of global climate strategies, highlighting the region’s deep connection to the ocean.
“So much of our song and dance is in reverence of our great blue Pacific Ocean.
“By swaying along to its song, you now hold responsibility to it. The responsibility of placing our ocean and marine ecosystems at the centre of global climate strategies and solutions,” she said.
She urged leaders not to forget the children they had seen during their time in the Pacific, including those who welcomed them in Tuvalu.
“In the islands, all the children are our children. They belong to us.
“I hope you never forget their faces. I hope you see their faces when you go home. See them in your children,” Fruean said.
Fruean said children and young people were among those most exposed to the consequences of climate change.
“1.1 billion children face at least three overlapping climate hazards, threatening health, education, and survival.
“As they learn to count, we are counting the degrees that determine their future,” she said.
She said the Pacific’s call to keep the global temperature goal within reach remained clear.
“1.5 to stay alive remains our mantra.
“You now bear the responsibility of protecting 1.5, and this requires immediate emissions reductions,” Fruean said.
With Pacific leaders preparing to endorse the Taku Pakasoa Declaration ahead of COP31 in Türkiye, Fruean said their meeting should lead to practical action rather than remain another conference.
“Your time here isn’t just a conference. It is a ceremony, a welcoming of responsibility to take care of your Pacific family,” she said.
She called on leaders to turn climate solutions into action and ensure Pacific priorities shape the outcome of COP31.
“Those who have fed you, sung for you, and are now counting on you to chart a better future, turning solutions into practice, elevating our collective why, and preempting the outcomes of what we need from COP31,” Fruean said.
She said Pacific unity did not mean avoiding disagreement but working through differences and holding each other accountable.
“In a Pacific family, we will ask questions. We will disagree, discuss, hold each other accountable, but always to find a way forward,” she said.
“You arrived here as guests, welcomed as friends and comrades, but now let us continue as family, carrying this responsibility together and turning it into long-overdue action,” she said.
The Pacific Pre-COP31 Leaders’ Plenary is expected to conclude with leaders endorsing and signing the Taku Pakasoa Declaration, setting out Pacific priorities ahead of COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye.
