The 2026 Fono meeting of Oceania's Anglican leaders in Vanuatu between 9 - 16 April 2026 has called for support from across the Anglican Communion for Vanuatu's push to implement "polluter pays" financial consequences on high-polluting UN member states.

Anglicans are being asked to stand with Vanuatu as it backs the International Court of Justice's 23 July 2025 Advisory Opinion that finds a case for imposing financial damages on member states that have long-since engaged in polluting activities that worsen atmospheric damage. 

The ICJ finding shows that the nations responsible for the majority of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and which fail to meet internationally-agreed reduction targets, cannot be allowed to hand the financial burden of climate change mitigation onto the most-affected developing and island nations. 

The ICJ has found that developed nations' high emissions exacerbate the extreme weather, sea-level rise and desertification facing the same low-emitting nations that are now forced to deal with the cost of disasters caused by others' excesses. 

Oceania Anglican leaders are asking for Anglican churches to advocate for their Governments to meet their obligations under the The Paris Agreement article 9: which provides that
“[d]eveloped country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both [climate change] mitigation and adaptation”

As well as requiring developed nations to support restoration of ecosystems, early warning systems, and resilience-enhancing infrastructure, through both finance and technology, the ICJ legal opinion calls for consideration of affected peoples' human rights to an environment that sustains healthy communities, particularly noting the cultural and self-determination rights of Indigenous peoples.

With all of the Anglican Churches in the Oceania region home to island communities at direct risk of climate-related disasters, the move to shift finance toward climate-change threatened nations' adaptation could help ensure communities served by Oceania's Anglican churches have a better chance to survive and flourish into the future, even as the climate changes.

As Oceania Anglican leaders called for Communion-wide support to implement the ICJ proposals, they also committed the region's churches to reconsider their own investment strategies, including the challenge of more direct church investment into Pacific climate resilience programmes.

The Archbishops and General Secretaries concluded the climate-related portion of their April meeting by agreeing to convene an additional Fono, which will look at how Anglican Churches can build initiatives to foster climate resilience and disaster preparedness in their communities and across the region.

In their official statement from the Vanuatu-based meeting the FONO members agreed to:

a.  call upon the Anglican Communion to support Vanuatu's United Nations General Assembly initiative recognising the [July 2025] ICJ advisory opinion,
b.  review investment policies in light of best practice in climate justice, and
c.  convene a special FONO focused on disasters and disaster preparedness. 

The Oceania Anglican Fono also committed to reviewing the holistic impact of migrant worker schemes across the Pacific and to work on developing the network of Pacific Anglican centres for theological education. 

The full official statement from the 2026 Oceania Anglican Leaders' Fono can be found here:

2026 Oceania Anglican Leaders' Fono sets shared aims