Pacific nations and global coalitions: The split path to climate action

Ministers and negotiators convene in Nadi, Fiji, from 5 to 8 October to prepare for COP31 in Turkey's Antalya province, a gathering that places Pacific leaders directly across the table from world powers to chart the next major United Nations climate summit. Their demands are specific and survival-oriented: hold the 1.5°C warming limit, expand access to climate finance, and treat ocean impacts as central to the formal agenda. A UN report cited at the meeting shows sea level rising at a record pace, driven by warming oceans and glacier melt, with up to 1.2 billion people potentially displaced by 2050. Pacific island countries experience this rise most acutely, their very existence contingent on the ambition negotiated in rooms like this one.

At the same time, nearly 60 countries gather in Santa Marta, Colombia, for the first global conference dedicated explicitly to phasing out fossil fuels. The United States, the largest historical emitter, was not invited. The summit occurs against a global energy crisis triggered by the United States and Israel's war with Iran, a conflict that has sent shortages and price spikes cascading through economies worldwide. Governments have been forced to ration fuel, shorten workweeks, and limit travel, sharpening the tension between immediate energy security and long-term decarbonisation. Ministers in Santa Marta are attempting to build a coalition willing to negotiate a fossil-fuel phase-out, testing whether a minilateral approach can gain traction without the participation of the country whose historical emissions most shaped the crisis.

The two gatherings share a week but not a participant list, and the divergence illuminates a structural paradox in climate diplomacy. The Fiji meeting operates under the UN framework, where consensus among nearly 200 parties sets the pace and every word is negotiated. The Colombia meeting operates as a minilateral — a coalition of the willing moving faster than the universal process allows. The nations most exposed to sea-level rise host the world to demand survival-level ambition within the inclusive but cumbersome UN system. A separate group of nations attempts to engineer a fossil-fuel exit outside that system, without the largest historical emitter in the room. Each track carries different leverage, blind spots, and timelines.

The Fiji talks aim to produce a roadmap for COP31 in November. Whether they yield concrete finance mechanisms for loss and damage or remain symbolic will test the UN process's capacity to deliver for the most vulnerable. The Colombia initiative tests whether a fossil-fuel phase-out coalition can build enough momentum to eventually pull the major economies into alignment. The energy crisis triggered by the Middle East conflict adds a volatile variable: governments facing fuel rationing today may recalculate their commitments for tomorrow, their short-term survival instincts clashing with the long-term imperatives both summits represent.

For now, the diplomatic landscape is defined by parallel tracks that do not intersect. Frontline urgency and major-economy action remain on separate calendars, in separate cities, speaking to different audiences. The question is whether either track can compel the other to close the gap, or whether the structural divide between inclusive process and decisive action will persist as the planet continues to warm.