Tuvalu’s climate change minister, Maina Talia, has warned that COP31 cannot be allowed to become another talking shop. “It cannot be another talk shop or debate over ideas,” he said. He called instead for strategic action, including a faster phase-out of fossil fuels. He also wants a real effort to keep 1.5°C of warming within reach.
Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo went further on the question of money. He asked COP31 to deliver more grants, not loans, for endangered island nations. “Climate finance must not push vulnerable countries deeper into debt simply to survive,” he said. Much of the climate finance currently offered to small island states arrives as loans. That adds to national debt even as it funds adaptation the countries did not create the need for.
Fourteen world leaders visited Tuvalu for a pre-COP31 event this month, despite persistent rain. They included Australia’s Anthony Albanese. Representatives from about 30 nations also travelled to the low-lying atoll nation. Land there sits barely two metres above sea level on average.
A coastline rebuilt by hand
Tuvalu’s own adaptation effort is already under way. The Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project is reclaiming land at four sites. The new ground is built six metres above the reef flat, enough to withstand tides of up to 3.2 metres. The project aims to add more than 20 hectares of habitable land by the end of 2026, intended for housing, schools and hospitals.
“What we are doing here has shown to the world that adaptation is not a dream,” said Alan Resture, the project’s manager. Albanese said the priority remains cutting global emissions. “We need to deal with the fundamental issue of the rising emissions,” he said. He added that keeping 1.5 degrees within reach stays “very much on the table” for Australia as COP31 host alongside Turkey.
The warning from Tuvalu echoes a wider pattern across vulnerable states. A recent scientific assessment found that overshooting 1.5°C carries rapidly escalating climate risks, some of them already irreversible. That finding strengthens the case island nations are making. Finance, they argue, should arrive structured as grants rather than loans.
Food and water pressures compound the risk
Although this round of talks has focused on coastal land and emissions, the underlying stakes for Tuvalu include food and water security, concerns that rarely make the headlines but shape daily life on the atoll. Low-lying atolls have limited freshwater and almost no arable land to fall back on if seawater intrusion worsens, leaving import dependence as the default rather than a choice.
Flooding elsewhere in the region has already shown how quickly climate shocks can disrupt food systems. Record rainfall recently triggered deadly floods and displacement in southern Myanmar. It is a reminder that the wider Indo-Pacific faces climate pressure on several fronts at once. Sudden floods sit alongside the slower, grinding crisis of rising seas, and both strain food and water supplies in different ways.
COP31 negotiations are due to run in Turkey, with Australia co-hosting. Tuvalu’s ministers say they will judge the summit on one measure above all others. They want to see finance commitments arrive as grants that reach communities quickly. A long list of pledges announced on stage, without money following soon after, will not count as success in Funafuti.
