Opening Ceremony of COP31 Singapore Pavilion in Antalya Türkiye - Ms Grace Fu

1. Welcome to the opening of the Singapore Pavilion.

2. Firstly, congratulations to Türkiye and Australia for their leadership of COP31. 

3. This year's Presidency has placed a strong emphasis on implementation. This is both timely and necessary. The Paris Agreement provides an important framework for global climate action, but commitments must translate into concrete action, especially as the impacts of climate change become increasingly severe.  

The Singapore Pavilion 

4. Turning ambition into action requires us to all do our part. This spirit of collective action is at the heart of the Singapore Pavilion. The theme, “Shared Resilience, Strengthened by Community”, reminds us that resilience is built through collaborative action. Governments, businesses, financial institutions, researchers and communities must pool their strengths and work together to develop practical solutions that can make a difference at scale.  

5. If you look around, you will see that the Pavilion design is inspired largely by nature. Nature demonstrates that resilience is not achieved in isolation. The roots strengthen the ground. The tree canopies regulate heat and provide shelter. Inspired by this, our Singapore Pavilion presents climate action as an interconnected ecosystem where shared, interlaced efforts deliver more durable resilience. 

6. Peranakan and Turkish-inspired tiles, featured in the backdrop, is our way of bringing our Asian culture to Turkiye. The motifs represent climate responses such as protecting our coasts, enjoying nature and keeping cool in the heat, inspiring conversations on how climate action will safeguard what we enjoy today, and to protect it for future generations.

7. Over the next two weeks, this beautiful Pavilion will be the place for a slate of exciting programmes, always on, covering a wide variety of important issues, from finance, carbon markets, energy, transport, cities, zero waste, to adaptation and resilience. It will also be the place for connections - partners from across the private, public and people sectors, academia, youths, and communities from continents near and far, will gather here to explore, collaborate, and advance collective climate action.

Translating Climate Ambition into Action

8. For Singapore, building and strengthening domestic and international partnerships has always been the pathway for climate action.

9. Our blended finance initiative - FAST-P, raised over US$1 billion with the support from Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.  Public, private and philanthropic capital alongside multilateral development banks, and commercial investors are here collectively to accelerate Asia's low-carbon transition. In Singapore, we turn words into action. And we are grateful for the trust and support that our partners have given us, many of you are here with us today. We deeply value these partnerships, and we look forward to doing more, with more of you.

Strengthening Climate Resilience at Home

10. One such area that requires collective action is resilience. The extreme weather events that we have seen, just this year alone, are cause for grave concern - from wildfires in South-East Asia, glacier collapse in the Himalayas, to extreme heat in Europe and multi-year drought in Africa. We must strengthen our collective resilience to the impacts of climate change, without delay.

11. Singapore and dedicated 2026 to the Year of Climate Adaptation, to raise awareness, and rally action towards adaptation.  We have engaged communities across the public, private and people sectors extensively and are co-creating plans and solutions together. This spirit is reflecting in our Pavilion: we can only build resilience by working together.

Strengthening Climate Resilience Across the Region

12. The world is closely connected through trade and supply chains. Our collective investment in adaptation has not kept pace with growing needs. Our food system is especially vulnerable, as extreme weather threatens agricultural production around the world, affecting the livelihoods of farmers and communities. Strengthening the resilience of the global food system is therefore an urgent priority, requiring greater investment and collective action.

13. I am pleased to announce the launch of Scaling Projects and Investments for Resilience in Asia, or SPIRE Asia here at COP31.

14. SPIRE Asia will strengthen Southeast Asia’s climate resilience, starting with food resilience, by making promising adaptation solutions investable, by mobilising private capital to scale them.

15. The program has three important components:

    • A Data Platform to assess climate risks and adaptation opportunities;

    • A Market Development Facility, to develop and aggregate food resilience opportunities into investment-ready projects; and

    • A Blended Finance Fund of up to US$500 million.

16. Together, the programme aims to build an ecosystem for adaptation investment, unlock finance and scale resilience solutions across Southeast Asia.

17. We will need MDBs, DFIs, financial institutions, research organisations and other partners to develop and operationalise these components. We hope to find partnerships and welcome all of you to join us in addressing the critical challenge of financing adaptation.

18. Ambassador Ravi Menon will share more about the programme.

Conclusion

19. Ladies and gentlemen, we have an exciting 10 days ahead of us! It seems long but it is not. We have a lot to do, and we must make full use of the opportunity of being here at Antalya together.

20. It is a Chinese belief that fate has brought us thousands of miles across oceans to meet in person at the Singapore Pavillion. Behind this fate, it is a purpose, an intention that we can do something meaningful, impactful and important together. Let us not allow the encounter to go to waste. Let us connect and turn ideas into action. The world waits no longer.

22. Thank you.