Turkey’s environment minister lays out agenda for COP31 summit

With artificial intelligence and the Iran war topping the agenda at this week’s United Nations General Assembly, the president of the upcoming U.N. climate summit appealed to global business leaders to keep rising emissions in focus.

“We believe we will be safer if we increase military spending, but the greatest threat is at our doorstep, which is climate change,” Murat Kurum, Turkey’s environment minister and COP31 president, said Tuesday during a speech at the COP31 Global Business Forum — New York Dialogue.

Turkey is hosting the November talks in the city of Antalya in partnership with Australia, which is leading negotiations. In his speech, Kurum laid out the agenda for the summit, including six global targets spanning areas from municipal waste to green industrialization. Top of the list is for countries to achieve 35% electrification by 2035.

“At the heart of the action agenda for COP31 lies electrification,” said Kurum, pointing to power grids, battery storage, green transportation and buildings as priorities. 

A new analysis released by the International Energy Agency found that the goal is within range. Using energy prices before the war, IEA researchers found that electricity could meet 33% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035, an increase of 10% from current levels, and in a cost-effective way. The heightened fossil-fuel prices the world has seen since the war are making electrification even more affordable, they said.

In an onstage interview afterward, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz “will accelerate this electrification. Not because of climate change, mainly because people want to produce energy as much as possible at home and reduce the reliance on other countries.”

The target remains aspirational for Turkey, though. The country is only on track to reach 25% electrification by 2035. Some climate advocates have also called for the goal to focus specifically on green electricity to ensure the new power push isn’t met with fossil fuels.

Climate diplomacy has come under strain since U.S. President Donald Trump officially pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement for the second time earlier this year, and countries around the world have faced new financial burdens due to the Iran war, constraining their climate budgets.

Kurum called for the talks to help countries deliver on existing targets through investment deals.

Antalya will feature the largest business event of any climate summit to date, according to Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, chair of the COP31 Business Forum.

“The climate targets will not be won in negotiation rooms, they will be won in factories, on farms, on construction sites,” he said at the event.