Six Pacific island nations have issued a joint call for the world to back a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, and pledged to build a global alliance to phase out coal, oil and gas.
The push from countries with little historic responsibility for the climate crisis came at a meeting in Vanuatu, held as the country was in an official state of emergency after being struck by back-to-back cyclones.
The signatory countries – Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Tonga, Fiji, Niue and the Solomon Islands – urged all Pacific nations to make their island states fossil-fuel free as soon as possible and global leaders to agree to phase out coal, oil and gas production in line with the goal of limiting global heating to 1.5C.
Vanuatu’s prime minister, Alatoi Ishmael Kalsakau, said a spate of record profits from fossil fuel companies – largely driven by the market disruptions triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – showed polluting industries would not break from “business as usual” behaviour without being forced.
“We need both domestic action and international cooperation to explicitly stop the expansion of fossil fuel emissions and production in order to fulfil the aims of the Paris Agreement,” Kalsakau said. “Transitioning away from an extractive economy provides us with the opportunity to build one that is instead visionary, regenerative and fruitful.”
The three-day meeting in Port Vila was co-hosted by Vanuatu and Tuvalu, which both supported a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty at the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt in November. If adopted, it would mean an end to fossil fuel expansion, an “equitable phase out” of existing developments and a “global just transition”.
The six nations called on all countries to support a Pacific resolution at the UN general assembly in September seeking non-binding advice from the International Court of Justice on how existing laws could be applied to strengthen action on climate change and “save the Paris Agreement”.
They said future UN climate agreements needed to be unequivocal about the need to phase out fossil fuels, and no longer qualify commitments with words such as “unabated” or “inefficient”, which were seen as “loopholes” to justify new developments.
Major developed and developing nations continue to support new fossil fuel developments despite warnings from climate scientists, the International Energy Agency and UN secretary-general António Guterres that they should end immediately if the goals of the Paris agreement were to remain within reach.
The Biden administration this week approved an $8bn (£6.59bn) oil and gas drilling project on remote tundra in Alaska’s northern Arctic coast, staring down protests from progressive Democrats, former vice-president Al Gore and millions of online petitioners.
Romain Ioualalen, global policy lead at Oil Change International, said the Port Vila statement showed Pacific governments had “once again demonstrated what true leadership looks like”.
“The contrast between the US and other rich countries approving new oil and gas fields in clear defiance of science, and the commitment to build a prosperous and resilient fossil fuel free Pacific could not be more obvious,” he said. “We look forward to Pacific countries continuing to be vocal champions for a just and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels on the global stage, including at Cop28 later this year.”
