[Kasalikasan] Here we go again: Climate talks kick off in Turkey

'The world has been addressing climate change together for over three decades, yet the numbers are still alarming'

Hello!

The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference opened Monday, November 9, in Antalya, Turkey — now the 31st session (COP31) since talks started in Berlin, Germany, in 1995.

The world has been addressing climate change together for over three decades, yet the numbers are still alarming. According to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) State of the Climate Update released also Monday:

• 2026 will be one of four warmest years on record.
• With the “off the charts” Super El Niño underway, temperatures are likely to rise further. “It is different from any El Niño that we have monitored,” warned WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo, urging countries to prepare for an even warmer 2027. In the Philippines, senators are urging President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to declare a state of calamity in Super El Niño-hit areas.
• Ocean heat is the highest on record for the 10th consecutive year. Sea level has also reached a record high, increasing risks for 900 million people living along low-lying coasts.
• Saulo said during a COP31 briefing that the world is “supercharging our weather…. Heatwaves, tropical cyclones, and rainstorms are intensifying faster than our historical baselines prepared us for. The human and economic cost is unacceptably high.”

Lest we forget, we’re starting this year’s climate talks after a disappointing COP30 outcome that promised to triple adaptation finance by 2035 but omitted any mention of the fossil fuels that drive climate change in the first place. No wonder former leaders and climate experts had two years ago criticized the annual climate talks as “no longer fit for purpose” and needing reform. (WATCH: What happened at COP30?)

But I’ve covered these talks closely for the last five years, and no matter how disappointing each conference ends, tens of thousands still participate because it remains the only platform for the world to negotiate climate change solutions. And as long as countries keep showing up, the hope continues.

For instance, the Philippines is finally coming to Antalya with an updated nationally determined contribution, incomplete it may be. 

This year’s COP is also putting the spotlight on the world’s oceans — fitting, considering how the ocean absorbs 90% of the excess heat trapped in the Earth’s climate system by excess greenhouse gases. And aside from world leaders, communities that are oceans apart come together at COPs to share best practices and solutions, especially those that face similar challenges.

“No COP is a silver bullet,” said UN climate chief Simon Stiell in his opening remarks on Monday. “No single conference can bridge the chasm between science and reality. We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. Every recent COP has delivered strides forward. This one must too.”

Let’s get to work.

We’re doing things differently this year: follow Rappler’s coverage of COP31 high-level events in the Environment and Science chat room of our MUNI app. Here’s what happened on Day 1. For more stories, bookmark this page.

Till the Tuesday after next!

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