Statement
AOSIS Statement at the COP31 Event: From Ambition to Implementation: Introducing the COP31 Action Agenda
Delivered by Anne Rasmussen
Key Points
- AOSIS welcomes the Action Agenda’s stronger priorities, coherence, and alignment with UNFCCC outcomes.
- Commitments require transparent, verifiable accountability and measurable delivery, with SIDS fully included.
- Urgent, sustained action must mobilize finance, technology, partnerships, and the Global Implementation Accelerator.
- Commitments require transparent, verifiable accountability and measurable delivery, with SIDS fully included.
- Urgent, sustained action must mobilize finance, technology, partnerships, and the Global Implementation Accelerator.
- Thank you, and on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island Developing States, I am pleased to offer a few remarks at the launch of the COP31 Action Agenda.
- AOSIS warmly congratulates the COP31 Presidency of Türkiye, and Australia as the incoming Presidency of Negotiations, on today's launch. Acknowledging also the important foundation laid by the COP30 Presidency of Brazil, whose revitalisation and stewardship of the Action Agenda has brought us to this moment.
- Over successive presidencies, we have watched the Action Agenda evolve. What was once a broad aspirational framework has matured into a mechanism with clearer thematic priorities, greater institutional coherence, and — importantly — a stronger and more direct relevance to the negotiated outcomes of the UNFCCC process. That evolution is welcome, and today's launch reflects that progress.
- AOSIS is particularly pleased to see the development of an institutional framework for the Action Agenda. We must be candid, however, about what we need to see next: stronger, more sustainable, and verifiable accountability and transparency for the actions identified under this Agenda. Commitments made under the Action Agenda must translate into delivery on the ground for those most affected, and that delivery must be measurable.
- In that spirit, we say clearly do not leave SIDS behind. SIDS must not be sized out of Action Agenda initiatives — by economies of scale, by eligibility criteria, by readiness gaps. The Action Agenda must actively counter that tendency, not replicate it. We also wish to highlight the critical importance of the Global Implementation Accelerator (GIA) as a vehicle for translating ambition into action. AOSIS must emphasize the importance of this linkage as we see real potential in the GIA as a mechanism for emphasizing SIDS-relevant solutions and accelerating our access to finance, technology, and the partnerships that deliver them.
- Finally, as a coalition representing the most climate-vulnerable nations on earth, AOSIS must stress the urgency of responding to the reality of an overshoot. We are already living beyond the limits of what our communities can safely absorb. The Action Agenda must be a vehicle that puts all tools to work — mobilising all actors, all stakeholders, and all available resources to accelerate action now. Not later. Now. And that engagement must be sustained beyond COP31.
- AOSIS stands ready to engage constructively, in initiatives, in partnerships, in technical cooperation, and in the negotiations themselves to help strengthen the Action Agenda’s framework, to ensure that this Action Agenda delivers, with SIDS fully included.
- Thank you.