What's on the Table: COP31 Update #5

Pacific island nations left a COP31 pledging event for their new regional fund, the Pacific Resilience Facility, without the money they came for. Developed countries re-announced old pledges, leaving the fund $300 million short of its $500 million target for 2026. At an ocean event on Friday, Palau’s ambassador to the UN described how hard it already is for small islands to reach climate finance: the applications alone can overwhelm a small government. On Friday, countries also gave their first reactions to an outline of what COP31’s final decision could say. Across the venue, the people most exposed to climate change pressed to be part of it: island states, coastal regions, farmers, and communities asking for money that reaches them directly.

What a final decision could contain

Ahead of Friday’s consultations, the COP31 presidencies published a summary of countries’ views on a possible cover decision; the overarching political text a COP often adopts at its close. It is less a draft than a menu of options, and the presidency said it does not reflect consensus. The options include limiting how far and how long warming overshoots 1.5°C, the 35-by-35 electrification goal, welcoming Brazil’s roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels, a baseline and milestones for tripling adaptation finance, and action on methane. It also carries priorities of oil-producing countries, including faster carbon capture and removal and a time-bound phase-out of unilateral trade measures, seen as a reference to the EU’s carbon border levy.

When heads of delegation met to respond, the divisions were plain. Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia objected to the 35-by-35 goal; Kuwait and Bahrain also objected to the fossil fuel roadmap and said they could not join consensus with those references in. Russia said the text had no mandate. The EU, the UK, Norway, the small island states, Peru and Brazil pushed the other way, for an explicit commitment to 1.5°C, a stronger signal on overshoot and human rights at the core. Brazil, which presided over COP30, said people were missing from the summary and named young people, Indigenous Peoples and persons with disabilities. The African Group asked for more on adaptation and finance, and Peru and Nepal for attention to mountains, where glaciers are vanishing. Written submissions close on Saturday, and a first draft follows.

The ocean’s share

The ocean absorbs about a quarter of the carbon dioxide humans emit, yet ocean solutions attract only about 1% of climate finance, Tony MacDonald of Monmouth University’s Urban Coast Institute told a side event on bringing the ocean into national climate plans. Palau’s ambassador to the UN, Ilana Seid, said all 39 small island states include ocean measures in their national climate plans, but applying for climate funds is too bureaucratic for small governments. She called for regional institutions, like the Pacific Resilience Facility, that can move money faster.

The gaps showed up on the ground. In Mexico’s Quintana Roo, record arrivals of sargassum seaweed are smothering beaches in a state that, according to its environment secretary, Óscar Rébora Aguilera, draws about 25 million tourists a year. Turning knowledge into funded projects is the hardest part, he said, and the state is looking for industries to turn the seaweed into energy and other products. Panelists noted that about two-thirds of national climate plans mention the ocean, but few set measurable targets or come with money attached. African nations, the EU and small island states want COP31 to agree an ocean roadmap toward 2028.

The event also looked to the next generation. Lolita Couchene of Nausicaá, France’s national sea center, described training young people from 69 countries as ocean advocates. Their manifesto, she said, was endorsed by 1.5 million young people and fed into the outcome of a UN conference.

Money that reaches the ground

In Tanzania, the government found that only 10% to 17% of climate finance was reaching communities, said Hawa Mwechaga, its national climate change coordinator. Its answer, developed with the World Bank, is a program to scale up locally led climate action: communities identify their own problems and priorities, and local governments take the lead. “Climate impact is local, so solutions should also be local,” she said. Tanzania also aims for 80% of its people to use clean cooking instead of firewood and charcoal by 2034.

Farmers made a similar case at a session on food security. Betty Chinyamunyamu of Malawi’s National Smallholder Farmers’ Association said farmers are already adapting to drought and floods, not because of COP but because their survival depends on it; they adopt what they have seen work in a neighbor’s field. Saustine Lusanzu, a Tanzanian farmer who grows maize, beans and wheat, said affordable technology, reliable weather information and training in local languages would let more young people make a living from farming. In Brazil, no-till farming has spread with help from low-cost credit for farmers who adopt it, said Laura Antoniazzi of Agroicone.

Elsewhere at COP31. At a press conference, civil society groups urged governments to stop bringing fossil fuel lobbyists in their delegations and to adopt a conflict-of-interest policy for the talks; a speaker from Oil Change International said one in 25 participants at COP30 came from the fossil fuel industry. The disability caucus called for formal constituency status in the talks. And University of California researchers warned that floods are stirring up mercury long buried in river and wetland sediments, one more reason to protect wetlands as natural barriers.

Where the church comes in

Reflecting on the ocean session, a member of our delegation turned to the prophet Amos: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). In Scripture, water carries both life and justice, and Friday showed why the two belong together. United Methodists live along coasts from the Philippines to Mozambique and in farming communities across Africa, where the health of the sea and the next harvest decide how families eat.

Tanzania’s finding that so little climate finance reaches communities points to something local churches already have: presence. Congregations are rooted in their communities and there before and after disasters strike. As negotiators turn this week’s menu into a draft, United Methodists can press their governments for finance that reaches communities directly, and for a final decision that keeps at its center the people Brazil said were missing.

On Friday evening, United Methodist delegates joined the wider ecumenical community at COP31 around a long dinner table.

Follow our updates throughout COP31, share them with your congregation, and hold in prayer those working to turn commitments into action.