My fellow leaders,
Distinguished guests,
UN Secretary-General António Guterres,
President Erdoğan.
This is an historic moment for my country.
Australia is proud to be playing a leading role with Türkiye on climate change negotiations for the world at this United Nations Conference of the Parties.
Proud to be a leader on climate action.
Proud to be a renewable energy leader, creating the clean industries, businesses and jobs of the future.
And proud to be here fighting for the interests of our Pacific family.
We sought this role because we wanted to speak for the people of the world who need urgent action.
Including those from our Pacific family.
Their brave and resourceful people need us to act.
They are pleading for us to do so.
Politely but with absolute clarity.
Just last month on Tuvalu, at the special Pre-COP Australia co-sponsored with Pacific nations, I met Melelusi Sokotia – a year 8 student, just 13 years old – who told us she dreams of becoming a doctor, but fears for her home.
This was Melelusi’s message on behalf of her friends, and I want to read it to you:
We all have one simple dream — to grow up safely here in Tuvalu, the place we call home.
We are not asking for pity, we are asking for help and partnership.
Please work together to protect small islands like ours.
Please help us build strong schools, strong homes and strong water systems so students like me can learn, play and grow up safely.
Melelusi and her friends are just some of the reasons why we are here.
Their islands stand an average of just 1.83 metres above sea level.
The rising waters are a direct threat to their homes.
A sudden storm surge could spell absolute devastation.
But there is hope.
In Tuvalu, I saw what can be achieved, in the form of engineering works like the impressive Tuvaluan Coastal Adaptation Project, stopping erosion, holding back storms and reclaiming land.
Proof that by acting together the world can make a practical difference.
The good news is that real and rapid progress is possible.
Before the Paris Agreement, the world was heading for around 4 degrees of warming.
Today, estimates put that trajectory at around 2.6 degrees.
The world’s goal of course is 1.5.
But while we will likely overshoot 1.5 degrees, every fraction of a degree of warming we prevent will count.
We have a solemn responsibility to this and to future generations to act.
This is the critical decade.
We must take that action now.
That is why we are all here.
To demonstrate what we can achieve together - every nation acting.
COP31 must be where our cooperation delivers practical results.
Unlocking investment in clean energy technologies, accelerating electrification, speeding up action for our oceans, and unlocking climate finance for those who need it most.
We must ensure that we are heading towards a future where our energy is clean, reliable and affordable, and our economies are strong.
While the Paris Agreement’s target is under pressure, its call to arms can still be heard.
This is a movement of people that know that this agreement represents the opportunity not just for a more sustainable environment but as we have just heard from the Secretary-General, a more prosperous economy as well.
It has bent the emissions curve and helped drive the rapid expansion of renewable energy.
It has changed the direction of global financial flows towards cleaner energy.
Australia is playing our part.
Our target is ambitious.
Our progress is strong.
And our successes are significant.
In just six years, Australia has doubled renewables generation, which now accounts for half our electricity mix.
We proudly have one of the largest rooftop solar and battery markets in the world.
More than 600,000 home batteries installed in the past year alone, something extraordinary for a nation of just 28 million people.
Globally, communities and households are leading the transition to clean energy.
Governments must back them up with the right policies and the right incentives for investment.
If we do that, we can bend that emissions curve even further.
Friends, we must share the opportunities that climate action creates with the people who need them most.
To adapt and thrive, the most vulnerable countries need capital.
We must ensure that they get it.
That’s why last year, with other Pacific nations, we established the Pacific Resilience Facility.
It is the first Pacific-led regional climate financing mechanism.
A promise to our Pacific family that they will not face the climate crisis alone.
Australia has backed it enthusiastically.
And nations not just from the Pacific are making contributions as well.
It's already doing amazing work.
Friends, here at COP31, our principled approach must be the same one I have lived by for my entire political life:
No one held back, no one left behind.
I ask you to hear that message today.
I call upon you to live it throughout this COP and after you return home.
And I plead with you to join our campaign to help the nations of the Pacific confront a climate challenge that they certainly did not create.
Let’s turn ambition into implementation, commitments into action, and keep forging ahead never forgetting Melelusi and her friends and the generations to come right around the world who need and deserve our help.
Let us all be part of the solution.
I thank you.