This year the lead-up to the United Nations Climate summit, COP31, is a little different. The COP31 ‘main event’ in Antalya, Türkiye, will be preceded by a pre-COP convening in the Pacific. This post explains what the pre-COP is, what the significance is of hosting this gathering in the Pacific, and how it might feed into the COP31 conference later this year in November 2026.
Some Background on Climate COPs and COP31
Each year, a Conference of the Parties (or COP) meeting is convened under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and related agreements, such as the Paris Agreement. The COP meeting is a chance for countries to come together to review the implementation of their climate commitments, to track progress and agree new measures for taking global climate action forward. It is also a vibrant gathering of non-state actors – from businesses, to civil society, to Indigenous people, cities and academics – who take part in the Action Agenda that is designed to complement countries’ negotiations with initiatives for real-world implementation.
Each year the COP is hosted by a particular country from a given UN regional grouping. In 2026 it is the turn of the ‘Western European and Other States’ group to host, of which both Australia and Türkiye are members; Pacific countries, however, are not part of this group. Up until the final moments of last year’s COP in Belém, Brazil, Australia and Türkiye were in fierce competition to be the hosts of COP31. Australia’s COP31 bid was premised on a partnership with Pacific countries, promising to showcase the perspectives of these nations and communities – some of the world’s most climate vulnerable. In the end, Australia and Türkiye reached a compromise deal – Türkiye would be the formal host of COP31 and hold the COP in Türkiye; Australia would serve in the new role of ‘President of the Negotiations’ overseeing the formal intergovernmental negotiations component of the COP. And – to ensure a continuing role for Australia’s Pacific partners – the pre-COP meeting would be held in the Pacific.
What is Pre-COP?
Pre-COP is one of the series of lead up meetings to any COP, usually held a month before the start of the COP proper. Usually, pre-COP is a pretty low-key and technical affair. It is a chance for government negotiators, and sometimes ministers, working on different technical areas to meet and exchange views on key political issues that will be considered at the upcoming conference. Given its technical focus, pre-COP is usually not attended by country leaders.
Why is This Pre-COP significant?
The pre-COP for COP31 will be different. Hosted by Australia but held in Nadi, Fiji between 5-8 October it will have the usual focus on preparations for the technical negotiations at COP. But this will be accompanied by a leaders’ component (with some leaders travelling to Tuvalu) and a stakeholder program of formal side events and civil society organised events.
It is expected that pre-COP will also play a more substantive role in the lead-up to COP31. First, it is being billed as an opportunity for countries to make pledges of funding for the Pacific’s locally designed loss and damage finance fund, known as the Pacific Resilience Facility. The fund is seeking to raise $US500 million by the end of 2026 to support adaptation and resilience projects undertaken in Pacific countries. Second, the pre-COP will provide an opportunity for Pacific leaders and negotiators to meet, hear from experts and civil society advocates, and form positions on shared issues of interest ahead of COP. The priorities in this regard are keeping the 1.5 °C temperature goal in reach, elevating the ocean-climate nexus, improving access to climate finance and amplifying Pacific voices and leadership.
How Might the Pacific Pre-COP Help Shape COP31?
While COP31 is expected to be a ‘workmanlike COP’, focused on implementation and with few substantive negotiating outcomes that need to be landed at the summit, it comes at a time of immense change and challenge to international law and multilateral climate cooperation.
Under the second Trump administration, the US has withdrawn from both the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC and so its delegation will not be attending the COP or pre-COP but the country remains active in other climate-related forums with a mission to spike the tyres of any global climate initiative. For example, US administration officials have threatened to block progress at the reconvened meetings of the International Maritime Organization in December this year which are seeking to agree a new net-zero emissions framework for international shipping that is strongly supported by Pacific states. Staying the course on multilateral climate cooperation at COP31 is an important bulwark against these geopolitical headwinds and likely a message that Pacific small island nations will be keen for the COP to reinforce.
Both the war in Ukraine and even more so the US-Israel war against Iran have led to fossil fuel energy price spikes and refocused states’ attention on issues of energy security, accelerating electrification and the global transition away from fossil fuels. Those questions are not items on the formal negotiating agenda at this year’s COP but are likely to be ones that receive attention in the Action Agenda and potentially a COP outcomes document shepherded by the Türkiye-Australia presidencies. As leaders of the effort to phase out fossil fuels, Pacific countries will be keen to ensure to these issues are front and centre at COP31, and the pre-COP will potentially provide a platform to agree their negotiating strategy.
As the recent UNEP report on Limiting Overshoot highlighted, the world is now on track to exceed (‘overshoot’) the Paris Agreement’s goal to hold temperature rises to 1.5 °C even though (as the International Court of Justice emphasised in its climate Advisory Opinion last year) 1.5 °C is the parties’ agreed temperature goal under the Agreement). This news comes as a body blow to Pacific nations who fought hard to include 1.5 °C in the Paris Agreement and have led the charge to ‘keep 1.5 alive’ as a matter of survival for their countries. COP31 is likely to feature robust debate amongst countries about the implications of overshoot for their commitments to ‘keep 1.5°C in reach’ and to reach net-zero emissions by the middle of the century. Pacific nations and others are mobilising a ‘Friends of Science’ coalition in anticipation of a fight on this issue at COP31 and pre-COP is expected to have a strong focus on defending climate science and the need to stick to the 1.5 °C Paris temperature goal.
Finally, the unique arrangements for the COP and pre-COP this year could demonstrate a new model for more inclusive hosting of these meetings across different countries. The UNFCCC has on its agenda at present a discussion on possible reforms to the intergovernmental negotiating process and COPs specifically. Australia has the opportunity to use its presidency role at COP31 to advance this agenda. COP31, and the pre-COP leading into it, is a chance to show the world how things can be done differently and better than in the past, while giving the most climate-vulnerable countries a meaningful voice in the process.
Photo by Max on Unsplash
Jacqueline Peel
Jacqueline Peel is a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of Law at Melbourne Law School and the 2024 Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellow undertaking a 5-year program on global corporate climate accountability. She has published more than a dozen books on climate and environmental law topics, including her co-authored monograph on Litigating Climate Change in the Global South with Jolene Lin, and served in numerous professional leadership roles, including as the inaugural Director of the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne Climate Futures initiative, as a co-chair of ASIL’s Signature Initiative on Climate Change and International Law and as a coordinating lead author in Working Group III (Mitigation Policy) for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Seventh Assessment Report.
