COP31 faces tough test as climate threats mount

Nearly 200 nations gather for the COP31 summit in Turkey on Monday but tensions over geopolitics, finance and fossil fuels are tempering expectations of a major breakthrough in tackling the climate crisis.

More than 100,000 people are expected at the UN’s two-week climate negotiations in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya.

Tougher action on fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change, appears unlikely and budget-strapped developed countries are reluctant to commit more money to help developing nations cope with climate impacts.

An energy crisis and cost-of-living pressures, fuelled by the war in the Middle East, are also looming over the gathering.

“This is not going to be the COP that changes the world,” said Paul Watkinson, France’s former chief negotiator at climate summits.

“It’s an intermediate COP in many ways. But it is an important conference and it does need to make sure it makes progress,” he said.

The talks follow deadly floods in Nepal, searing heatwaves in Europe and major wildfires in Indonesia.

An exceptionally strong El Nino climate phenomenon is forecast to peak later this year, adding to extreme weather and possibly helping to make 2026 or 2027 the hottest year on record.

The outlook is increasingly bleak: the United Nations warned in September that global temperatures were on course to exceed 1.5C above preindustrial levels, breaching the most ambitious threshold set by the Paris Agreement.

‘Implementation COP’

Turkey is presiding over COP31, with Australia leading negotiations under an unusual arrangement that settled a dispute over who would host the conference.

“COP31 comes at a difficult time for the world,” said Australian climate minister Chris Bowen.

“Reaching consensus among nearly 200 countries will not be easy but cooperation remains essential,” Bowen said.

COP31 president Murat Kurum, Turkey’s environment minister, said the conference would strive “to turn the commitments of past COPs into real results”.

Turkey is promoting an “action agenda” alongside the formal negotiations that encourages countries to support non-binding pledges on issues from artificial intelligence to waste management.

Its centrepiece is an “electrification” drive to raise the share of global energy demand met by electricity from around 20% today to 35% by 2035.

“This year’s energy crisis has shocked us out of our complacency,” Kurum said. “Electrification is the answer. It protects communities from volatile global markets and cuts emissions.”

Turkey and Australia also want electrification to appear in a “cover decision” — an overarching political statement negotiated by consensus and reflecting the main outcomes of the summit.

The European Union has called for “clean” electrification — a term that could spark debate over the role of fossil fuels in the Turkish initiative.

“The Turkish COP31 presidency’s electrification pledge was quite carefully worded in its language,” said Cosima Cassel, a climate diplomacy expert at think tank E3G.

It is “quite an open pledge that I think is going to enable quite a few countries to come on board”, Cassel said, noting that the initiative refers to “diverse and sustainable energy sources”.

Money fight

Countries committed to transition away from fossil fuels in a landmark pact at COP28 in 2023 but have struggled to agree on how to turn that pledge into action.

COP30 ended with a deal that made no explicit mention of fossil fuels after oil-producing countries opposed the language.

Instead, Brazil produced a voluntary “roadmap” with proposals for phasing out fossil fuels that each country can tailor to their circumstances.

Observers say Turkey and Australia are keen to avoid a repeat of last year’s fossil fuel fight at COP31.

But a feud looms over wealthy nations’ unfulfilled financial commitments to help developing countries adapt to climate change and shift to cleaner energy.

The group of African negotiators are demanding that a pledge to triple adaptation finance — money to cope with the worsening impacts of climate change — be added to the negotiation agenda.

Recent elections have given climate campaigners a boost, with Democrats seizing control of the US Congress in a setback to President Donald Trump, who calls global warming a hoax.

A US congressional delegation will attend COP31, but the Trump administration is not taking part in the negotiations.

Fresh from his re-election win over conservative challenger Flavio Bolsonaro, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will travel to Antalya next week.

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