When BRICS leaders met in New Delhi last month, their declaration mentioned climate 34 times. Yet it also stated plainly that “fossil fuels will still play an important role in the world's energy mix, particularly for emerging markets and developing economies.” That line now sits squarely in Australia’s path: the country is due to preside over negotiations at the COP31 climate conference, which Türkiye will host in Antalya in November.
Governments face demands to mobilize climate finance and advance the phase-out of fossil fuels. The conference arrives as the world nears the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming threshold, The Diplomat reported in an article by Trang Nguyen dated October 5, 2026.
The Consensus Problem
The numbers are unforgiving. BRICS, founded by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has grown to 11 countries and represents 50 percent of the global population. Reaching absolute consensus among 198 countries on phasing out fossil fuels is difficult, the article noted, particularly with the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
Australia and Türkiye are expected to push forward outstanding agenda items. They include mobilizing the finance set out in the COP29 New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance and writing a fossil-fuel phase-out into negotiation texts. A Pre-COP31 preparatory meeting in Fiji will bring up to 3,000 participants together in the coming days, and organizers have planned a leaders' summit in Tuvalu.
Nguyen instead pointed to practical openings. Electrification is expanding in China, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia, and pairing it with renewable electricity could lower import bills. Pacific countries spend up to 13 per cent of their GDP on imported fuels. Replacing diesel generation with solar and batteries could strengthen energy security, but it takes upfront investment. That's the catch.
The article said businesses could invest in renewable-powered electrification in export-led economies, while concessional finance and development assistance could help communities replace aging, expensive equipment. Solar-powered cold storage, it said, could cut post-harvest losses and electricity costs for farmers and fishermen in the Philippines and Indonesia.
Trade Corridors and Standards
Some of the clearest progress is commercial. Clean commodity corridors are taking shape, including an Australia-to-Singapore green and digital shipping corridor and potential Australia-to-East Asia iron ore green corridors. Building them requires shared methods to measure emissions, recognize standards, certify products and move goods from producers to customers.
Work is also under way on a Net-Zero Framework for marine fuels under the International Maritime Organization. If negotiators advance it further in December, Nguyen wrote, it would be fundamental to global progress beyond shipping.
Philanthropy Fills the Gap
While diplomats wrangle, private capital is already moving. The Bezos Earth Fund announced more than $25 million in new ocean-conservation grants across the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu. The projects aim to support protection and sustainable management across more than 625,000 square miles of ocean.
The grants mark the second round of the fund's $100 million Unlocking Blue Pacific Prosperity pledge, taking awards under that commitment to $63.3 million. The first round, worth $37.5 million, came in 2025. The aim is to protect at least 30% of the region's waters by 2030.
Papua New Guinea is expected to establish its first large offshore marine protected area, while Tonga is expanding protected areas. A grant to the conservation organization Rare aims to help governments draft some of the first proposals to protect biodiversity in international waters under the UN High Seas Treaty, which took effect in January.
The fund’s pace faces scrutiny too. Bezos pledged $10 billion through the fund in 2020, with the money intended for distribution by the end of 2030. About $2.4 billion has gone out in awards, leaving roughly $7.6 billion. Bloomberg reported grantmaking reached at least $400 million in 2026 after dropping to $183 million in 2025. Kelly Levin, the organization's chief of science, data and systems change, said the fund takes time to understand an area before deciding how to direct its money.
Bezos has acknowledged the challenge himself. “The hard part is figuring out how to do it in a levered way,” he told CNN in 2022. “It's not easy. Building Amazon was not easy.”
The Climate Backdrop
The pressure is real. A July report by the World Meteorological Organization said ocean warming and acidification were affecting marine ecosystems and local economies in the South-West Pacific. The region recorded its second-warmest year in 2025, and marine heatwaves disrupted ecosystems and fisheries. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific said early warning and early action save lives when alerts arrive on time and last-mile delivery reaches vulnerable people.
Why This Matters:
The gap between negotiators’ ambitions and what the world’s largest economies will accept is wide. A bloc representing half the global population says fossil fuels remain central for emerging markets, and the U.S. has left the Paris Agreement. Consensus on a phase-out looks like a long shot. Meanwhile, projects linked to investment, trade standards and private funding are moving fastest, from shipping corridors to philanthropic ocean grants. That's a lesson for policymakers: results tend to come where capital has a stake and the economics work, not where treaties outrun the political will behind them. Pacific nations spending up to 13 per cent of GDP on imported fuel have a clear financial reason to change. How COP31 handles the cost question, and who pays, will shape whether pledges become projects.