Fiji, Nov. 4 -- Samoa and Antigua and Barbuda have called for urgent reforms to international climate finance, warning that vulnerable countries should not be forced into debt to recover from climate disasters they did little to cause.

The call was made by Samoa's Deputy Prime Minister Mulipola Anarosa Ale Molioo and Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne at the opening ceremony of the 2026 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in St John's.

Mulipola urged Commonwealth leaders to provide accessible, predictable and grant-based climate finance, saying the world was already moving beyond the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius warming threshold.

"Many nations and communities are facing permanent losses. But overshoot must n...