Cop31 may involve lots of talking about talking – but there are wins to be had

The world has again convened for Cop, the annual ritual to confront humanity’s greatest-ever threat. Aside from its own lore and acronyms, this conference is starting to feel a little like Groundhog Day.

Representatives from almost all countries, bar the recalcitrant version of the US under Donald Trump, are here in Antalya, Turkey, to face a familiar if worsening challenge. (Even the Taliban are attending.)

The UN, which oversees these talks, has acknowledged the obvious fact that the previously agreed 1.5C global temperature-rise limit is set to be breached in just a few years, with the Earth amassing heat at an accelerating pace.

Wealthy countries, though, are still failing to meet commitments to assist poorer, vulnerable nations to cope with climate impacts. We are still cutting emissions far too slowly. We are still bickering over who should shoulder the most responsibility for this.

So what’s to be gained from Cop31? We’ll go into what to expect over the next two weeks, after this week’s most important reads – and a reminder that, through Cop31, Down to Earth will be coming to you twice a week from Guardian reporters here in Antalya.

Essential reads

• Cop31: what is at stake at the UN climate summit and what can it achieve?

• ‘A new age of climate extremes’: Earth accumulating heat at accelerating rate

• Alien menace or victim of xenophobia? The battle over Britain’s parakeets

In focus

Since 1995, Cops have been vital in bringing the world together on the vexed question of the climate crisis, using the unwieldy cudgel of consensus decision-making and peer pressure to help forge the Paris agreement to limit the damage.

In many respects, this has been a success – at one point, the planet was staring down the barrel of a cataclysmic 4C temperature rise this century. That increase is now more in the range of 2.5C, aided by booming growth in clean energy. Such a warping of our climate is still disastrous (just think of the hellish summer many endured merely with the current level of global heating), but Cop has helped steer us away from even worse.

Still, some of the 100,000 delegates gathering here on the Mediterranean coast have been asking what, exactly, can be done here? The terms of the challenge don’t need further debate or agreement, we just have to start following through on our collective promise. Cop31 is another “implementation” Cop – its success hinges on countries going home afterwards and actually implementing things, rather than making more promises in an air-conditioned conference hall.

Political realities in other areas intrude like never before, too: the world is largely focused on war, inflation and a fracturing geopolitical order instead of the climate crisis. “This year’s fossil fuel cost chaos has delivered a global shock wave, hitting households hard and spreading inflation like a cancer,” Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said yesterday at the opening of the two-week summit.

Cop is a holdout of an ideal where countries could thrash out problems by negotiation, as nominal equals. Whether that ideal still holds is being tested like never before. As Chris Bowen, Australia’s climate minister and head of Cop31 negotiations, plaintively urged countries: “Friends, let’s show the world that multilateralism works. Let’s show the world we are equal to the challenge.”

Yet there are wins to be had at this Cop. The organisers (unusually, this summit is being shared between Turkey and Australia) are confident that a goal to increase the share of electricity in energy use can be adopted.

There won’t be a stunning breakthrough in eliminating the use of fossil fuels – the root of the problem yet still barely uttered due to the veto-like powers of oil- and gas producing states – but the Cop show should still stay on the road. To keep talking about keeping talking doesn’t feel adequate in the circumstances, but given where the world is now, that in itself is something to grasp on to.

Let’s see where the next two weeks take us.

Read more from Cop31

Who’s who at Cop31: key players at the climate talks
Cop31 must deliver climate progress that people can see is real, host says
Chris Bowen faces a titanic task at Cop31. What will it take for the world to make the climate crisis its top priority? | Adam Morton