At Thursday’s Pacific Islands Forum meeting, talks extended over 12 hours as leaders of Pacific Island nations clashed with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison over key climate policies. Morrison attempted to block a number of measures, including setting targets to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and halting coal mining. “I said to the Australian prime minister that ‘you are concerned about your economy, I am concerned the future of my people,’” Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga recounted. While Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama remarked that the final communique resulted in “watered-down climate language,” Sopoaga maintains “it’s a much stronger statement on climate change than the forum has ever made.” For the full story, see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/16/revealed-fierce-pac… and https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-pacific-forum/imperiled-by-climate-ch….