UN climate summit opens in Turkiye
World leaders, delegates, and climate activists on Monday began negotiations on curbing climate change, which in the last year has led to rising temperatures, deadly heat waves in Europe and beyond, and has played a role in disasters like the devastating floods in Nepal.
This UN climate summit, called the Conference of the Parties, or COP31, also comes as the war in Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, pushing up global prices of gasoline and oil and myriad products made with them, such as fertilizers and pesticides.
The disruption has pushed governments to rethink energy policies, both in the short term and long term, including increased investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Delegates, meeting in the Turkish Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, will come under pressure to develop new pledges for climate action while implementing previous promises. The stakes are high: Climate scientists say global average temperature rise will exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) since the early 1800s.
Overshooting target
Limiting temperature rise to that threshold was a goal established during the 2015 Paris Agreement. Since then, it’s been a focus of international climate negotiations. That the goal is no longer realistic underscores how difficult it’s been for the world to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which are released into the atmosphere when fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal are burned, leading to climate change.
“This is the first COP where it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the world will overshoot the 1.5-degree target,” said Turkish Environment Minister Murat Kurum. “We will not look away, and we will not lower our ambition.”
Kurum, the COP31 president, has said that rather than establishing new targets, he wants the summit to focus on turning previous climate commitments into action.
He has announced an “Action Agenda” that includes reducing methane, a greenhouse gas, and building climate-resilient cities, among other things.
A central theme is electrification, with the aim of increasing the use of electricity—preferably from renewable energy such as solar and wind—from 21 percent to 35 percent by 2035, to reduce greenhouse emissions.
During the negotiations, scheduled Nov. 9 to 20, delegates are also expected to take up the issue of helping poorer countries pay to adapt to rising temperatures and extreme weather events, both tied to climate change, and transition away from fossil fuels.
Little agreement
The last two summits, COP30 in Brazil and COP29 in Azerbaijan, came under criticism for ending with little agreement on how to reduce greenhouse emissions. The final texts of those agreements didn’t even mention fuels; at COP28 in Dubai, delegates agreed to transition away from fossil fuels.
Undermining the summit, the United States, which is the world’s second-largest polluter after China, will again be absent. During his first term, and again when he took office for a second time in January 2025, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from climate negotiations.
“No single COP is a silver bullet that can stop climate change overnight,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell. “But every recent COP has made essential progress. COP31 in Antalya will, too.”
In a change from previous summits, COP31 is being jointly organized by Turkiye and Australia after the two jostled over which would be the host. As a compromise, Turkiye is the official host while Australia is leading the negotiations. However, both countries have come under criticism for their strong reliance on coal.
