Pacific civil society condemns COP30 outcome as a failure of courage and responsibility

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Photo: Dylan Kava | PICAN

BELÉM, 22 November 2025 — Pacific civil society has delivered a stark assessment of COP30, calling the final package a profound failure to protect the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations. While COP30 confirmed the creation of a Just Transition mechanism, the overall outcome leaves frontline communities exposed, the 1.5°C limit hanging by a thread and the root causes of the crisis untouched. With Türkiye now confirmed as COP31 host, the Pacific warns that another year of delay is untenable.

Dr Sindra Sharma, International Policy Lead at PICAN, says:

"This COP of Truth revealed one thing: developed countries and emerging economies alike will go to extraordinary lengths, at the cost of their people and ours, to protect their own agendas. There is nothing to celebrate. That is the truth. All we have done is to defer action, given room for growth for fossil fuels, redlined justice, and harmed the integrity of science. All we did was to create processes instead of delivering outcomes."

For Pacific Small Island Developing States, the absence of a commitment to transition away from fossil fuels and the failure to secure real, grant-based finance - especially for adaptation and loss and damage - represent a direct threat to survival. The Pacific entered COP30 calling for a funded, fair and fast phaseout of fossil fuels. Instead, Belém delivered a political outcome that avoids naming coal, oil and gas entirely.

PICAN acknowledges the breakthrough achieved with the Belém Action Mechanism on Just Transition, won through the courage and persistence of civil society, workers, Indigenous Peoples and frontline communities. Yet without real finance and without a clear path to phase out fossil fuels, even this victory risks being undermined by inaction.

“The Pacific will carry this truth into Türkiye,” Dr Sharma continues. “COP31 must deliver what COP30 did not - a concrete plan to phase out fossil fuels, grant-based finance that reaches our communities and a pathway that honours the science and the rights of those already living the crisis. We will not allow another year to be lost to politics and delay.”

As the world turns toward COP31, Pacific civil society remains steadfast. The fight for climate justice continues - in negotiation halls, in communities and across the Blue Pacific - because inaction is not an option for those on the frontlines of the climate emergency.

PICAN will provide and release a detailed analysis of the COP30 outcomes in the coming days.

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About PICAN

PICAN is a regional alliance of 260+ non-government organisations, civil society organisations, social movements and not-for-profit organisations from the Pacific Islands region working on various aspects of climate change, disaster risk and response, and sustainable development.

Media Contact:

Dylan Kava, Strategic Communications Lead, PICAN

dylan.kava@pican.org | +679 9061989 (Belém / GMT-3)