Nadi, on Fiji's main island, has become the centre of the climate world this week as around 4,000 delegates gather for the pre-COP31 summit, the curtain-raiser to November's main UN climate conference in Turkey. Australia is presiding over negotiations as part of a compromise hosting arrangement, and Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen used the moment to announce fresh funding for renewable energy projects across the Pacific.
The numbers are tangible: $1 million for solar schools in Fiji, $2.2 million to bring renewable power to 19 communities in Papua New Guinea's Oro Province, and $2.5 million for clean energy in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. Bowen also unveiled a $7 million grant for wider Pacific renewables, part of a $50 million Australia-Pacific Partnership for Energy Transition, and pointed to domestic progress including 550,000 home batteries installed in 18 months.
The money lands amid friction. Several Pacific leaders criticised Australia's approval of a 19-year extension for the HVO coal mine in the Hunter Valley, and Fiji's Environment Minister Lynda Tabuya confirmed the issue was raised bluntly at a meeting of Pacific climate ministers. Her argument for the region was a practical one: much of the Pacific was never connected to a fossil-fuel grid, so it can leap straight to renewables. The stakes are real — Bowen noted some Pacific nations spend up to a quarter of their GDP on imported diesel, which hits emissions, health and energy security all at once.
The summit has drawn criticism of its own. An estimated $20 million of Australian taxpayer money is funding the event, drawn from a $147 million Pacific climate package, yet only two non-Pacific leaders — Mauritius' prime minister and Timor-Leste's president — confirmed attendance at the concurrent leaders' meeting in Tuvalu. Australia's Anthony Albanese will be there alongside 14 mostly Pacific heads of government, with speakers in Nadi including Jacinda Ardern and Julia Gillard. Bowen defended the spend as Australia's most significant diplomatic engagement in the region, and guaranteed Pacific ministers a daily seat at the table throughout COP31 — a contrast, he said, with past all-nighters where Pacific input came after deals were done.
The loudest voices came from Pacific youth. Opening the summit, climate advocate Miliana Iga declared that "the Pacific is not a sacrifice zone", framing the 1.5°C goal as a survival threshold and warning against false solutions like deep-sea mining. Her demand: young Pacific people included in existing decision-making systems, not given parallel ones.
For travellers, the story matters beyond the headlines. Fiji and its neighbours are on the front line of climate change, and the shift to solar power directly affects the destinations people visit — from more reliable electricity on outer islands to lower-cost, cleaner tourism infrastructure. The pre-COP is also a reminder that Nadi is the region's hub: its international airport is the gateway most visitors use, and the same energy security questions shaping these negotiations shape the island getaways beyond it. Anyone planning a Pacific trip in the coming years will be travelling through a region actively renegotiating its energy future.
Islands Business
