Pacific nations press for action at pre-COP summit

The UN "pre-COP" climate gathering has begun in the Fijian city of Nadi, where Pacific leaders are seeking to draw the world's attention to life on the frontline of climate change.

The South Pacific is among the most vulnerable regions in the world to global warming, from rising sea levels endangering homes to increasing temperatures causing coral bleaching.

This week's talks in Nadi and on the atoll nation of Tuvalu are a precursor to the larger UN-sponsored global climate summit COP31, which will be held next month in Turkey.

Pacific leaders are pushing for the world to stick to a target of limiting global warming to 1.5C, improve access to climate finance and give more attention to the impact on oceans.

"Our prime minister will carry three clear messages to the leaders this week: keep 1.5 degrees within reach, make finance reach the communities that need it and give the ocean its rightful place in the climate regime," Fiji's Climate Minister Lynda Tabuya told the opening ceremony.

Sea levels are rising at a record pace, driven by warming oceans and glacier melt, according to a UN report.

Up to 1.2 billion people could be displaced by 2050, with Pacific Island countries experiencing sea level rise at twice the global average, the report released in August said.

It also highlighted a financing gap, with developing countries needing $310-$365 billion to adapt yet having only $26bn (€23bn) in adaptation finance available in 2023.

"Today in Fiji, we are again calling on the world to match ambition with delivery," said Australia's Climate Minister Chris Bowen, who is also president of negotiations for COP31.

Regional leaders have pitched the pre-COP as a chance to bring the world to the Pacific.

Limited guest list

However, officials have been forced to concede that the guest list will be smaller than they had hoped.

Fewer than a dozen world leaders have publicly confirmed that they will attend.

Australia said last month 4,000 people from 60 nations would attend, without providing a full breakdown.

Among those attending will be Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal of Nepal, which is still recovering from August's Himalayan flood disaster, which killed nearly 1,500 people and left 5,800 missing in Nepal and China.

Top delegates to the Pacific talks will also hold a one-day retreat on low-lying Tuvalu, already laying plans to relocate the population due to rising sea levels.

The highest point in the capital Funafuti is just two metres above sea level, and two of its nine coral atolls are already largely swamped by rising waters.

'Act now decisively'

"Sea-level rise is not a future threat, it is a present reality," Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Teo told the UN General Assembly ahead of the climate talks.

"Tuvalu's message is clear: the world must act now decisively, collectively, and with urgency to protect the future for generations to come."

"It does make you think nobody cares," said marine scientist Rajneel Singh, part of a team that reported large-scale coral death around Tuvalu.

"It's very, very sad."

Extreme heat putting pregnant women & newborns at risk

United Nations Climate Chief Simon Stiell will tell the summit that extreme heat is putting pregnant women and their newborns at increasing risk.

Mr Stiell will cite a new survey showing more than two-thirds of health professionals across five continents have seen complications caused by intense heat in the past five years.

"Rising temperatures mean rising danger in pregnancy.

"Climate-driven extreme heat during pregnancy is increasingly linked to premature birth, still birth, low birth weight, and maternal complications.

"The picture is clear and very disturbing: as extreme heat worsens, pregnancy and birth are now a new faultline in the global climate crisis and one which is potentially fatal," Mr Stiell said in a pre-speech statement.

The survey of 1,000 midwives and doctors in the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Brazil and Zimbabwe was commissioned by charitable foundation Wellcome.

Its chairwoman, former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, said in a statement that mothers and babies are being put at increasing risk as a result of climate change.

"Extreme heat is an invisible killer, but pregnant women must not be invisible. Leaders have the evidence and solutions they need - now they must act," Gillard said.

The survey found nearly all midwives and doctors had cared for mothers or babies suffering from the effects of extreme heat.

About a third of respondents said they had seen cases of low birth weight or restricted growth, feeding difficulties and dehydration or heat-related illness, all resulting from what they believed was extreme heat.