The world can no longer treat the 1.5-degree Celsius warming threshold as a distant warning, with small island developing states (SIDS) urging governments at COP31 to confront the likelihood of global temperature overshoot through stronger emissions-reduction commitments, increased climate financing and accelerated adaptation measures.
Rueanna Haynes, deputy lead climate change negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), said this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference comes at a critical juncture, as the international community faces the increasingly certain prospect of exceeding the 1.5C limit established under the Paris Agreement.
Haynes said COP31, being held in Antalya, Türkiye, must show that countries are prepared to respond meaningfully to the consequences of decades of insufficient climate action.
“This COP is coming at a crucial point in time. We have confirmed that it is no longer possible to limit peak warming to 1.5C and that exceeding this limit is now practically certain,” she said.
Against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty and mounting challenges to multilateral cooperation, Haynes said the conference must send a clear signal that overshooting 1.5C will be treated with the urgency it demands.
She warned that anything less would represent a further moral failure, compounding the political failure to fully implement the Paris Agreement and previous climate decisions.
“We are living in the consequences of decades of inaction and insufficient action on climate change, and now we have a super El Niño that is making everything worse,” Haynes said.
For SIDS, many of which contribute relatively little to global greenhouse gas emissions but face disproportionate climate impacts, the stakes are particularly high.
Haynes said a credible response to temperature overshoot must address existing gaps in emissions reductions and climate financing.
She identified concrete commitments to transition away from fossil fuels, advance clean electrification and significantly reduce methane emissions as essential priorities. These measures, she said, are a baseline for limiting both the scale and duration of global temperature overshoot.
Haynes also called for increased investment in carbon dioxide removal technologies, stressing that these must complement rather than replace direct emissions reductions.
However, she warned that the response could not focus exclusively on mitigation, as rising temperatures would intensify threats to vulnerable communities.
Climate finance, particularly funding for adaptation and loss and damage, must therefore feature prominently in the negotiations.
Haynes said the existing Loss and Damage Fund remains woefully undercapitalised and requires urgent, adequate replenishment. She added that countries were also falling significantly behind on the adaptation measures needed to protect communities from increasingly dangerous climate impacts.
“Impending overshoot will worsen and accelerate deadly and dangerous impacts. We must strengthen our adaptation efforts now in order to have a fighting chance,” she said.
Asked whether COP31 could deliver meaningful progress on climate finance, Haynes acknowledged that the current geopolitical environment could limit the scale of any breakthroughs.
She expected outcomes to be incremental rather than transformational, but said vulnerable countries must continue pressing developed nations to fulfil outstanding climate finance commitments. She described those commitments as the minimum foundation for further financing arrangements.
Haynes stressed that climate finance must not deepen the existing debt burdens of developing countries, particularly small island states already facing economic and climate vulnerabilities.
For AOSIS, the measure of success at COP31 will extend beyond the language adopted in the final decisions. It will depend on whether governments can turn commitments into concrete action to protect the countries and communities most exposed to a warming world.
