On Tuesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned that Australia faces a summer of floods, cyclones, extreme heat and “extreme behaviour,” linking the forecast to climate change and a rising “super El Niño.” He spoke with national leaders at a climate summit in Fiji, one day after a delegation visited Tuvalu, a Pacific nation where warming isn’t a forecast. It’s a daily fact.
“Climate change is not a problem for the future. It is here right now, and we know that sea levels here in the western Pacific are rising at more than twice the global average,” Albanese said. “We know also that the forecast of super El Niño may test us all. The science told us that if we didn’t act to address global emissions this is precisely what would occur, and tragically that is playing out.”
He said the world couldn’t afford to let the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C “just slip from our grasp.”
Who Is Affected
Tuvalu consists of three reef islands and six atolls, with about 10,000 people. Most of its land lies less than 2 metres above sea level. During the visit, leaders toured a climate resilience project and a land reclamation scheme that will extend the atoll by about 20 hectares with sand and gravel dredged from its lagoon. They met people who live with the stakes.
Melelusi Sokotia, a 13-year-old local student, told the delegation her friends dreamed of “becoming teachers, doctors, builders” but spent their lives wondering whether their island would survive into adulthood. “We all have one single dream: to grow safely here in Tuvalu,” she said. “We are not asking for peace. We are asking for help and partnership. Please work together to protect small islands like ours.”
Tuvalu’s director of climate change, Jamie Ovia, explained the economic toll. Sea-level rise is projected to raise the annual cost of flooding and storm-surge damage to US$34m by 2050 and $63m by 2100. That exceeds Tuvalu’s GDP. Coastal fishing catch could drop by 16%, while warming seas could wipe out tuna stocks worth $4m a year. “We need time to adapt,” Ovia said. “Tuvalu is doing our part. Will you act with Tuvalu and will you act in time?”
The Finance Question
Tuvalu’s prime minister, Feleti Teo, said island states need quicker access to global climate finance as extreme events worsen. “Why should countries like Tuvalu take on more debt to protect ourselves from a climate crisis we did so little to cause? We should not have to borrow our way out of a crisis,” he said.
Fijian prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka said the world stood on the brink of overshooting the 1.5C goal agreed in the 2015 Paris agreement, and must bring forward its plans to cut emissions. “That is not radical. It is in line with our agreement, our obligation, and the scientific reality,” he said. The transition away from fossil fuels, agreed in Dubai at the Cop28 summit in 2023, “is not a new ask, and it is not open for renegotiation,” he added.
At a “sautalaga” meeting, an exchange of views, leaders voiced support for Tuvalu and called for faster emissions cuts and funding to help island states adapt.
A Credibility Gap
Australia faced scrutiny at the talks. The country drew criticism for advocating greater climate action while continuing new expanded coal and gas developments. Last week, an Australian state regulator approved a major coalmine development that would become the largest in New South Wales’ history if it gets federal approval.
The Tuvalu visit fulfilled a promise Albanese’s government made last year as part of a compromise deal after Australia missed out on hosting the Cop31 climate conference. Cop31 will take place in Turkey next month, while Fiji and Tuvalu host a preparatory meeting. Albanese, at his first UN climate conference as prime minister since his election in 2022, said the visit showed that “climate change must be understood as being something more than about science or targets.” He added: “It must be understood that effectively it’s about people.”
Former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, now chair of the health charity Wellcome, joined the delegation.
Why This Matters:
The summit exposes a gap between what governments say and what they approve. Albanese calls climate change a human issue while a regulator clears the largest coalmine in New South Wales history, pending federal sign-off. The costs, meanwhile, fall unevenly. Tuvalu contributed little to the problem, yet faces damage exceeding its entire economy by 2100 and asks not to borrow its way out. For Australians, forecasts of floods, cyclones and heat show warming reaching home, too. How leaders reconcile new fossil fuel projects with the Cop28 commitment—and whether climate finance reaches vulnerable states fast enough—will shape who gets protection and who must cope alone.