We built the Pacific's own resilience fund. Now help us fill it

By David Paul, Minister of Finance for the Marshall Islands and Chair of the Pacific Resilience Facility Council

This past June Pacific finance ministers gathered in the Marshall Islands to mark the

We built our own resilience fund because we had to. Our islands contribute just 0.03 per cent of global emissions , yet we bear the consequences of major polluters failing to keep their promise to keep the 1.5℃ within reach. So alongside our razor-sharp focus on limiting future damage, through demands for a fossil fuel phaseout and a shift to 100 per cent renewable energy, we must deal with the current reality and plan for a sustainable future. Our countries need adaptation projects that build the resilience our communities need not just to survive, but to thrive.

So what is new about this facility? The world’s big climate funds were designed for big projects in big countries. They require years of accreditation, complex proposals and expensive compliance. These are funds built to think in the hundreds of millions, while most of what a Pacific community needs is smaller: a water catchment before the drought, a raised evacuation centre before the cyclone, a seawall before the king tide.

The global funds serve a purpose in the Pacific, especially for large-scale utility and city-wide adaptation projects. But in our communities, the people most affected by the climate crisis have been furthest from the money: small island states receive only 0.2 per cent of global climate finance for adaptation, and access can take years. The Pacific Resilience Fund is designed to correct this systemic oversight and reach the places that other funds simply can’t.

Because it is ours, it works differently. The facility acts like an endowment: contributions are invested, and the returns fund grants to communities. Of every dollar it earns, ninety cents flows out and ten cents is reinvested, so the fund grows permanently. We provide grants, not loans - because for too long, we have watched our communities borrow to recover from disasters they did nothing to cause. As a Finance Minister, I can tell you prevention is not only the right way forward, it is the cheapest. For island countries, every dollar invested in adaptation can return as much as $6.50 in avoided damages and new growth, and it is spent building communities up rather than bailing them out. And the facility is built for direct community access, because we cannot expect communities to spend more time applying for a grant than implementing it.

Pacific governments have stepped up, matching political commitment with financial pledges. Even with budgets strained by climate impacts and fuel price shocks, we are contributing our own money to regional resilience.

No pledge, however generous, can substitute for countries leaving fossil fuels behind. We cannot bail out the canoe if we do not patch the hole. There is no fund that can adapt our islands to an ocean that keeps rising. We ask our partners for both: support our resilience, and move away from fossil fuels, to keep your communities and mine safe.

So here is my invitation. Pledges stand near US$172 million against an initial target of US$500 million this year, on the way to the US$1.5 billion we need to cope with a 1.5-degree higher world. That leaves more than US$300 million to raise in under six months.The chances to close the gap are already in the calendar: the August/September Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Palau, the pre-COP in Fiji and Tuvalu in October, and a dedicated pledging session at COP31.

Many countries have contributed, and we thank them for having faith in us. But we need more pledges, and we need bigger pledges. The Pacific is on the very front-line of climate change. Backing the PRF gives communities the opportunity to respond, with finance for the Pacific on the Pacific’s own terms. We can afford nothing less.