Personalities of the Pacific islands today denounced the decision by Australia to resign in favor of Turkey from co-hosting next year’s COP, along with many of these island nations affected by climate deregulation.

“We’re all unhappy. And disappointed that it ends this way,” Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkachenko told Agence France-Presse.

Australia had insisted on hosting COP31 in 2026 alongside its neighbours, threatened by rising water levels and climate change-related disasters.

It eventually backed down and said it was ready during the meeting in Belém, Brazil, for Turkey to host the summit. An agreement was necessary because, under COP rules, consensus is required to select the host countries.

“Pacific countries should seriously reconsider their relationship with Australia,” Bikenibé Paenio, former prime minister of the Tuvalu archipelago, part of which is already flooded due to rising waters, told Agence France-Presse today.

Experts fear that, by the end of the century, the islands of Tuvalu will no longer be habitable.

“While all eyes are on Turkey, Pacific Islanders continue to fight every day for the safety of our islands,” says Sulwafi Briana Fruehan, who is fighting to protect the environment in Samoa.

Justin Tkachenko criticized the process as a whole. “What has the COP accomplished over the years? Nothing,” he said.

“It’s nothing but a talkfest that doesn’t make the big polluters take responsibility,” the minister added.

Despite its withdrawal, Australia is seeking the chairmanship of the negotiations during 2026 — a division of labour that would be highly unusual.

Pacific island nations had almost all expressed enthusiasm for the prospect of Australia hosting the COP.

“Making the COP come to the Pacific would allow the world to see the crisis, but also the real solutions, local and adaptable, that our islands are proposing,” Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr. had said earlier this year.