Calling climate talks a dud misses the point, but the gains are in jeopardy

October 14, 2026 — 3:51pm

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Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr and other Pacific leaders have rejected criticisms that climate talks co-hosted by Australia in the Pacific last week were a failure.

“I have just returned from pre-COP in Fiji and Tuvalu, which Australia helped to organise and co-fund, and I have followed the media commentary here about who attended and what the gathering cost,” Whipps said, during a speech delivered at the Australian National University in Canberra on Wednesday.

“Media scrutiny is important. But so is perspective, and while cost matters, so does value. For the first time in the history of pre-COP, heads of state and government were invited to participate.”

Speaking with this masthead on Tuesday, Tuvalu’s climate change minister, Dr Maina Talia, also said the talks were a success. He said he saw first hand how the views of world leaders and their representatives shifted after they visited Tuvalu during the talks.

On the leadership group’s return to Fiji, he said, one representative told him, “My heart bled when I saw the children in Tuvalu, when I saw that strip of land in Tuvalu.”

Only two leaders from outside the Pacific attending crucial climate summit in Fiji

The event was always going to be controversial. It was cast by the opposition as an expensive pet project of Climate Change and Energy........

© The Age