Antalya (Turkiye): World leaders began formal talks at the United Nations climate conference in Turkiye on Wednesday, seeking agreement on concrete steps to curb global warming after a year of deadly floods, heat waves and other climate-related disasters.
But leaders of some of the world’s biggest polluting nations, including the United States, China and India, skipped the summit at COP31. Their absence left a handful of national leaders and UN officials to press for action as a new report warned of a widening gap between countries’ climate pledges and actual emissions cuts.
Scientists say global warming is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Limiting warming to that threshold was a goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement and remains a focus of international negotiations.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged world leaders to act on climate change in an opening speech at the leaders’ summit.
“We know the truth. Now we must act on it,” he said. “Because climate action is more than a fight over a number or a thermometer. We are in the fight for our lives and our children’s future.”
Guterres outlined four principles for climate negotiations: ending reliance on fossil fuels, adapting to a warmer world, increasing financial support from wealthy nations to countries coping with climate change, and promoting cooperation over conflict.
He called the framework “a new Climate Justice Compact based on shared responsibility, shared security and shared benefits.”
“We do not need countries to agree on everything. But we do need them to cooperate on the things no country can solve alone,” he said.
Brazil’s newly reelected president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said climate change had slipped off the global leadership agenda over the past year, overshadowed by wars, inflation and geopolitical conflicts.
He pledged to protect the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, and urged world leaders to work together for a just, sustainable future.
“Brazil is back to defend the continuity of a healthy planet,” he said in closing.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza, devoted much of his speech to Gaza and the Palestinians.
“What has taken place in Gaza is not only a genocide, but it is also an ecocide,” he said, drawing applause. “Centuries-old olive trees have been cut down. The soil and water have been polluted in Gaza, and cities in Gaza have been turned into enormous piles of rubble.”
More than 70 world leaders and senior government officials are speaking at the leaders’ summit, though some key leaders are absent.
“It really is a disgrace that just one of the seven G7 heads of state and only a handful of G20 leaders are attending this summit,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a climate and energy think tank. “The world’s biggest economies should be leading the response to the climate crisis, not leaving it to others.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attended, but many leaders of European countries stayed away.
“More than half of the top leaders of the EU countries are not showing up at the leaders’ summit,” Climate Action Network Europe Director Chiara Martinelli told The Associated Press. “If Europe wants to help steer the global transition, it needs to show up and be part of it.”
What COP31 will accomplish remains uncertain. Past talks have been criticized for producing promises that later went unfulfilled.
Delegates at the 2023 conference in Dubai agreed to transition away from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, the main drivers of climate change. But subsequent conferences in Azerbaijan and Brazil yielded little agreement on how to reduce their use. Last year’s conference in Brazil produced a compromise deal pledging more money to help vulnerable nations adapt to climate change.
This year’s conference opened Monday, with Turkiye hosting and Australia leading negotiations amid concerns that global climate action is moving too slowly.
An annual climate change performance index published Wednesday by Germanwatch and the New Climate Institute found a widening gap between nations’ climate plans and action on the ground.
“Overall, current collective efforts are not enough to prevent catastrophic climate change. But we see clear potential for improvement,” said Jan Burck of Germanwatch.
Turkiye and Australia ranked among the worst performers in reducing planet-warming emissions.
The talks also come as the war in Iran has driven up global prices for oil, gasoline and products such as fertilizers and pesticides. Those increases have prompted governments to rethink energy policies and investment in renewable sources such as wind and solar.
“We don’t need more promises, we need plans,” said John Kerry, a former US secretary of state and presidential climate envoy.
The United States, the world’s second-largest polluter after China, is absent from the talks for the second consecutive year.
US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, has targeted offshore wind projects and removed rules limiting power plant emissions.
