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Japan’s exports of clean energy technologies could more than double by 2035 as Asia accelerates its electrification, according to energy think-tank Ember, but it urged the government to abandon policies that support fossil fuels to maximise its clean-tech potential.

The nation’s exports of batteries, electric vehicles (EVs) and motors, heat pumps and grid equipment could be even higher with the right policies in place to ensure it remains competitive and fully embraces the market for clean energy technologies, Ember’s analysis found.

Rapid electrification also means the country’s exports of combustion engine cars, engines, hybrid vehicles and other fossil fuel-powered equipment could more than halve by 2035, falling to about $70 billion from $161 billion in 2024 amid faster-than-expected EV adoption in the region.

Ember director Kingsmill Bond said Japan had the potential to become a leader in clean energy technologies due to its strong engineering base and some of the world’s lowest borrowing costs.

“It should be one of the big winners of the electric age,” he said. “Instead, public money is going into cheap fuel, ammonia for coal plants and new gas plants. Every yen spent propping up the old system is a yen not spent building the home market that Japan’s electrotech companies need to compete abroad,” he added.

Japan in the age of electricity

Ember’s analysis is based on its rapid-change scenario, in which clean energy technology exports keep rapidly winning market share. It also assumes that Japan keeps its share of export markets.

Japan is already the world’s fifth-largest exporter of clean-tech goods, following China, Germany, the US and Mexico. In 2024, it exported clean energy technologies worth $44 billion, driven by exports of EVs and grid equipment.

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At home, it is also one of the world’s most electrified countries, with electricity supplying 32% of its final energy use, according to the International Energy Agency, meaning Japanese buildings and factories already run on electricity more than those in China, the EU or the US. Yet, Japan’s electrification rate has barely increased in the past decade.

At COP31 in Türkiye this week, a coalition of countries is expected to back a global pledge to increase the share of electricity in final energy consumption to 35% by 2035.

In addition, Japan’s solar and wind potential, including on rooftops and offshore, could generate 13 times the country’s electricity demand every year, according to Ember. Despite this, Japan imports nearly all of the fuel it burns, having almost no fossil fuel reserves.

At the same time, its early manufacturing lead in areas such as batteries and EV drivetrains is slipping away, Ember said.

Falling behind

In Southeast Asia, where Japanese brands have long dominated, the energy supply crisis triggered by the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sped up the uptake of EVs, and Chinese companies are pulling ahead.

In Thailand and Indonesia – two of the region’s largest car markets – more than 85% of EV sales came from Chinese brands in 2025, according to BloombergNEF’s latest EV outlook.

Nissan’s EV concept car is displayed during the Japan Mobility Show 2023 at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo, Japan, November 1, 2023. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon Nissan’s EV concept car is displayed during the Japan Mobility Show 2023 at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo, Japan, November 1, 2023. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

The shift illustrates the rapid transformation of a region which remains highly exposed to fossil fuel imports. Asia holds just 4% of the world’s oil and gas reserves but has become home to three-quarters of its clean-tech factories, according to Ember.

But Japanese carmakers bet on manufacturing hybrid vehicles rather than fully electric ones. Since 2019, the share of Japanese carmakers in global car sales has fallen from 31% to 26%.

“Unless Japan pivots fast to electric cars, it will cede one of its biggest industries to China,” said Sam Butler-Sloss, manager at Ember.

A way forward

Japan’s current energy policies favour fossil fuels and are holding back its potential to deploy electricity technologies, according to Ember.

Since 2022, Japan has spent about $86 billion on fuel and energy-bill subsidies intended to keep prices down, the report found. At the same time, the country has struggled with high electricity prices and slow electrification growth.

Meanwhile, the government has spent public money on technologies that rely on the old fossil-based system such as LNG, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.

• Nov 9, 2026 News COP31 Bulletin Day 1: Agenda settled as COP urged to “supercharge solutions” An agenda row is averted at the opening session, where the UN climate chief said strong results are needed from the talks to boost “real-world outcomes” Read more
• Nov 5, 2026 News COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit? Electrification, the fossil fuel transition, adaptation to rising impacts, climate science and trade are key themes as governments gather for COP31 in Türkiye Read more

Ember called on the government to set an electrification target and to respond to the energy crisis with renewable power, EVs and batteries rather than fuel subsidies. It found the government can leverage the country’s industrial strength for producing electric technologies by building up its domestic market.

This could include putting an end date on sales of new petrol cars and coal power generation, providing funding for suppliers and regions to switch to clean power generation, shifting taxes from electricity to fossil fuels, and pivoting public funding to electricity technologies.

Rolling out clean energy technologies across the transport, electricity and heating sectors could also significantly reduce Japan’s dependence on fossil fuel imports.

Noriaki Oba, energy analyst and founder of the Japan-based Post-Oil Strategy Institute, said contributing Japanese technology to Asia’s electrification “would offer Japan a major opportunity for both its industrial competitiveness, as well as its diplomatic and economic security”.

The post Japan urged to ditch fossil fuel support to maximise clean-tech exports appeared first on Climate Home News.

Energy and Transport Day at COP31 ironically saw a second morning of horrible traffic jams and over-crowded buses and trams, meaning early events at the venue had to be hastily rescheduled. 

This COP has more than 68,500 registered participants, together with another 24,500 workers needing to reach the venue, which is around 25 kilometres from the centre of Antalya. 

Once things finally got underway in the halls on Tuesday, the focus was on two main voluntary pushes: transitioning away from fossil fuels (TAFF) and the COP31 Global Electrification Pledge, meant to usher in the “age of electricity”, according to the Turkish presidency.

The pledge sets a goal of raising electricity’s share of final energy consumption from around 23% today to 35% by 2035 (known as 35×35) by electrifying transport, buildings and industry.

“This year’s energy crisis has shocked us out of our complacency and demonstrated the inherent vulnerability of dependence on energy imports. Electrifying the global economy is now essential to boost energy security, cut emissions, and drive economic growth,” COP31 President Murat Kurum said in a statement.

The COP31 presidency is “determined to chart a path forward and use the annual UN summit to build momentum”, he added. But it remains to be seen whether and how the pledge will be incorporated into the final cover decision from Antalya, as some fossil fuel-producing countries are set to oppose any mention of the electricity to meet it coming from clean sources. 

Neither is it clear which countries are backing the pledge. Climate Home News understands that no list is expected this week, as Türkiye rallies governments to the cause. Australia and other recent COP host nations are on board, while the European Union co-hosts the first “Electrification Forum” on Tuesday, bringing together governments, institutions, businesses and financiers. 

The International Energy Agency (IEA), meanwhile, will lead a Global Electrification Tracking Mechanism to monitor global and regional electrification trends.

The IEA says the 35×35 electrification goal is within reach with strong political backing. But a recent analysis from Climate Action Tracker shows current policies will only lead to a share of 28% for electricity by the deadline.

• Nov 10, 2026 Comment COP31 outcome needs to prioritise transition away from fossil fuels  Many countries are already working on parts of their transition, such as phasing out coal or ending fossil fuel subsidies, with more expected to follow soon Read more
• Nov 10, 2026 News Developing countries face climate finance deficit as loan payments soar Repayments on climate loans could overtake new lending by 2036, according to CARE analysis shared exclusively with Climate Home News Read more

On the TAFF front, Brazil’s COP30 presidency held a high-level event to showcase its new global roadmap, which is essentially a toolkit to help countries start planning their transitions away from coal, oil and gas.

Here, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said countries should use the document to build their own concrete national roadmaps including clear timelines, responsibilities and financing needs.

By the next Global Stocktake of national climate plans in 2028, “every country should be able to show what it has done to cut fossil fuel use or production, what it will do next, and how it will measure progress,” he said, in a challenge to governments. 

He added that it is “long past time to stop treating the transition away from fossil fuels as taboo or intractable” and called on COP31 to “move from discussing the transition to organising it, financing it, and delivering it”.

European nations signal support for fossil fuel roadmap, says COP30 president

Unfortunately, Türkiye’s leader appears not to have got the memo. On Monday evening, in a post on X, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan praised the start of production at two new oilfields in his country last month as “good news” coming from the mountains of Gabar.

He added that with further development, daily production from 230 wells in the region will increase by 30% to reach more than 100,000 barrels a day in the second half of 2027, contributing billions of dollars a year to the Turkish economy.

As with the electrification pledge, the TAFF process remains a pick and choose effort. Some fossil fuel-producing nations are adamant it will stay that way and are likely to resist any attempt to anchor the roadmap in the cover decision or other negotiated outcomes at COP31. 

Nonetheless, energy security concerns are expected to lead to an almost 60% increase in renewable capacity growth from 2026-2031 compared to the previous six years, according to the IEA, with solar power accounting for three quarters of that growth.

Declarations aim to electrify shipping and rooftops

One sector that is tricky to electrify – mainly because of a lack of chargers in the middle of the ocean – is maritime transport.

But a newly formed group of ports, shippers, campaign groups and think-tanks want electricity to be used where it can in the sector – electrifying ships on short routes like ferries, plugging ships into the electricity grid when they’re in port and electrifying the machines that handle ships’ cargo.

While the COP31 presidency has proposed a 35% by 2035 goal, this group said on Tuesday they want electricity’s share of final energy demand in shipping to rise to a more modest 20% by 2035 – up from a negligible amount today. The Danish Port of Esbjerg and Californian Port of Long Beach are among the backers of the Maritime Electrification Breakthrough Goal.

Maritime electrification projects could get a huge boost from the International Maritime Organisation’s Net Zero Fund, if it is agreed at intergovernmental talks in London starting later this month.

A cruise ship plugs in to shore power, meaning it can turn off its engines, at the Port of San Diego (Photo: Cody Hooven/Port of San Diego)

Also on Energy Day at COP31, a group of countries including Australia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria and Vanuatu signed onto the Global Rooftop Solar Declaration, an Australia-led initiative to try and double the number of solar-powered households to 300 million by 2030.

It’s not clear exactly how many countries are backing it. But the presidents of Palau and Pakistan also joined leaders to discuss the initiative while Indonesia’s state-operated utility PT PLN signed up too.

Australia’s climate minister Chris Bowen said in a statement: “Many countries have the sunshine, the space and the demand, but lack the finance, infrastructure and workforce needed to unlock this opportunity. This declaration is about changing that.”

Coal phase-out partnerships offer emerging economies early help

A multilateral initiative launched in Antalya aims to tackle one of the key demands from coal-producing countries in the Global South: help to access the existing pool of funding for transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Through “Coal Transition Partnerships”, the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) – a group of governments and other actors launched in 2017 – is seeking to unlock more than $23 billion by supporting developing countries to draw up their first phase-out plans.

Backers of the initiative include the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and climate research think-tanks like Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and TransitionZero.

Julia Skorupska, head of the PPCA secretariat, told Climate Home News in Antalya that the early interventions could help developing countries access larger financial mechanisms along the lines of the Just Energy Transition Partnerships (JETPs), which are working to help several developing countries phase out their coal fleets.

She added that countries are required to have done “a lot of work” before applying for transition funding, including having investment plans and a portfolio of projects. “For us that feels like a gap,” she said.

She added that the initiative has received “a lot of interest” and is meant to enable early-stage planning in coal-dependent emerging economies such as Kazakhstan, Indonesia and Pakistan.

A woman walks past the Orlando Power Station, a decommissioned coal-fired facility now repurposed for bungee jumping between its iconic twin towers, one of the attractions drawing tourists to Soweto, South Africa September 30, 2024. (Photo: REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko) A woman walks past the Orlando Power Station, a decommissioned coal-fired facility now repurposed for bungee jumping between its iconic twin towers, one of the attractions drawing tourists to Soweto, South Africa September 30, 2024. (Photo: REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko)

By the time of the next Global Stocktake – the UN’s five-year review of climate progress – in 2028, the PPCA aims to be supporting ten of the world’s most coal-dependent countries. These include Indonesia, Vietnam, India and South Africa, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Farah Heliantina, energy transition official at Indonesia’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, said in a statement that the country’s experience “has taught us how challenging this transition can be”, as uncertainty in global fossil fuel markets threatens energy security at home. 

Finance for the transition away from fossil fuels has proven difficult to channel effectively. At COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, South Africa was the first country to announce an $8.5bn JETP – funded by a group of donor countries including the UK, Germany and France – which included projects like early power plant retirements, reskilling workers and building transmission lines for renewable energy. However, by 2025, only around $3.8bn had been allocated.

After the war in Iran disrupted oil and gas markets this year, countries with gas-fired power fleets like China, Korea, Japan, and some European countries have turned to easier-to-source coal generation to keep their economies running, the IEA has highlighted. Skorupska said there’s a risk that new coal investments could become stranded.

“Fundamentally, we want to think about how we can help people overcome those shorter-term challenges to get the real long-term benefits of the transition away from fossil fuels,” she said. 

Transport troubles set to get worse as leaders arrive

The first two days of COP31 have seen travel chaos which looks set to get worse on Wednesday. As world leaders arrive in town and head to the conference centre, some roads will be closed so that the VIPs can be ferried in past not-so-important delegates. The COP31 presidency is warning of “severe disruptions”.

The UNFCCC warned that most buses will operate at reduced capacity from 8:30am to 12pm, and advised delegates to avoid these hours. The frequency of buses before 8:30am will be increased so that participants can arrive early.

The 42 world leaders causing this heightened level of disruption on Wednesday will speak from 2pm local time. They include Brazil’s recently re-elected President Lula, European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen and China’s Vice President Han Zheng. The Turkish and Australian leaders are not on the list, but are expected to speak as COP31 co-hosts.

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley arrives to attend COP31 in Antalya, Turkiye, on November 10, 2026. (Photo: Abdullah Güçlü – Anadolu Agency, courtesy of COP321 presidency ) Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley arrives to attend COP31 in Antalya, Turkiye, on November 10, 2026. (Photo: Abdullah Güçlü – Anadolu Agency, courtesy of COP321 presidency )

The speech of Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley will be worth a watch as she often uses COPs to unveil interesting and progressive new ideas. So will that – for different reasons – of Saudi energy minister Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud, the only minister allowed to speak on a day reserved mainly for presidents and prime ministers. 

After COP28 agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, he infamously described this as just one item on an “a la carte menu”.

Another set of leaders – kicking off with the UK’s Andy Burnham – will speak on Thursday morning, including those of Nigeria, DR Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Venezuela’s new President Delcy Rodriguez.

UK touts electrification despite report about weaker EV measures

UK climate minister Katie White told Tuesday’s electrification summit that going electric offers energy security, affordable energy and stronger economic growth.

“For us, this is about protecting households and businesses from volatile fossil fuel prices, strengthening our energy independence and getting bills down for good,” she said.

But back in London, the government’s commitment to electrification and climate action was called into question after the Guardian reported that the UK’s mandate for electric vehicle (EV) sales would be watered down.

UK climate minister Katie White at the UK pavillion on November 10, 2026 in Antalya, Turkiye (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Chatham House researcher Chris Aylett said weakening the mandate would “stifle, rather than encourage, the investment in new manufacturing and infrastructure vital to the country’s electrification journey”.

A crunch meeting will take place on the issue on Wednesday, presided over by de facto deputy prime minister Louise Haigh, the newspaper reported.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham – who will fly to Antalya on Wednesday afternoon – will stay out of the decision as his wife advises the board of an EV-charging network.

White told fellow ministers at COP31 about the various innovations in grids that British companies are pursuing, among them National Grid’s efforts to use dynamic line rating to increase the amount of electricity that transmission lines can carry.

The post COP31 Bulletin Day 2: Energy Day off to slow start amid transport chaos appeared first on Climate Home News.

Stientje van Veldhoven is Minister of Climate and Green Growth for the Netherlands.

When we co-hosted the first-ever conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels (TAFF) this April, the world was reeling from the volatility in oil and gas prices due to the Hormuz blockade. Fossil fuels moved to the centre of the debate as country leaders scrambled to secure supplies for their people. 

We saw the very opposite in Santa Marta. Nearly 60 nations came together with 2,600-plus participants from civil society and community organisations, businesses and scientists to discuss concrete solutions on how governments can shift away from fossil fuels. Together, we defined the ‘Santa Marta process’ to serve as an extra engine for the broader process of the UNFCCC.

The Santa Marta process will see expert groups and committed countries develop national roadmaps, chart pathways to overcome financial constraints, and drive economic transformation. We made a multi-year commitment to take this process forward. With Tuvalu and Ireland taking over as co-chairs for 2027, transitioning away from fossil fuels is now moving from words to action.

European nations signal support for fossil fuel roadmap, says COP30 president

Work gets underway

At the opening of the Santa Marta conference, my co-chair Colombia’s then energy minister Irene Veléz Torres and I repeatedly stressed one thing: that the forum was not a space for negotiations, but a forum for countries and other partners to discuss practical steps to move away from fossil fuels.

Since then, we have seen three roadmaps already submitted: by France, Germany and our own. Pacific Island ministers also recently announced their intention to develop a regional roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. And I called on the European Commission to do the same for the European Union.

On top of this, numerous countries are already working on parts of the transition, such as phasing out coal or ending fossil fuel subsidies. More countries are expected to follow soon.

Workstreams were launched in early August, followed by sign-ups from countries willing to take a larger role and lead on organising different activities. Each workstream has an assigned lead organisation (or madrina). Each has its own working structure.

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Workstream 1 focuses on supporting countries in developing and implementing flexible, country-owned national roadmaps. It operates as an open, collaborative hub that coordinates partner institutions to provide tailored technical, financial and policy support directly aligned with each country’s specific needs and existing frameworks. The consortium, which functions as a hub, currently consists of the NDC Partnership, the Powering Past Coal Alliance, the World Resources Institute and the newly established Science Panel on the Global Energy Transition.

Workstream 2 focuses on mobilising collective coalition power to tackle national and international financial constraints, debt-related barriers and macroeconomic dependencies that hinder the transition away from fossil fuels. Starting with a scoping phase, it will deliver transparent, actionable recommendations and reform solutions to support countries’ structural fiscal needs at global fora. Its madrinas are the International Institute for Sustainable Development and Transforma, a Latin American think-and-do-tank. 

Workstream 3 focuses on driving economic transformation by mapping green partnership potential, decarbonising trade balances and building competitive, mutually beneficial clean markets. It aims to help countries, especially producers, diversify their economies, scale domestic value creation, and unlock collective trade opportunities. The madrina is the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development working together with the South Centre.

Incorporating Santa Marta into COP

What was abundantly clear in Santa Marta is that our coalition’s efforts are a strong support to, rather than a replacement for, the COP process. Over the past decade or so, the focus at COPs was on setting goals. Now we must focus on implementation. The COP31 presidencies have previously indicated their willingness to incorporate elements of the Santa Marta process into COP31 outcomes. We look forward to seeing how we can achieve this together.

The Brazilian COP30 Presidency delivered its global roadmap on the transition away from fossil fuels – a voluntary toolkit for countries that want to move ahead – just before the COP started in Antalya on Monday. During the coming two weeks, it’s critical that we see more concrete, actionable roadmaps for the fossil fuel phase-out. These documents can be crucial for a strong second Global Stocktake of national climate plans in two years’ time.

Brazil’s fossil fuel roadmap sketches out first global timetable

At COP31, a variety of TAFF-related events will be hosted, focusing on next steps within the Santa Marta workstreams. We welcome any leader and expert from around the world to take part as they work to develop their roadmaps, identify the fossil fuel subsidies they need to phase out, or establish green/clean markets at home.

Only by reducing fossil fuel demand and replacing it with clean electricity to run our economies can we all become more economically resilient and sharply cut the pace of climate change.

The post COP31 outcome needs to prioritise transition away from fossil fuels  appeared first on Climate Home News.

With rich governments and development banks delivering more climate finance as loans, developing countries could be paying back more each year than they receive in new lending by the mid-2030s, new research has found.

CARE Denmark and the CARE Climate Justice Center worked out the repayment schedules of around 17,500 climate loan records reported by developed countries and multilateral lenders between 2011 and 2024, in what the researchers say is the first analysis of its kind.

It estimates that repayments on these public climate loans, including interest and fees, nearly tripled from $6.9 billion in 2020 to $20.1 billion in 2024. That is equivalent to around a fifth of the public climate finance that developed countries reported providing that year.

If climate lending stays at its 2024 level each year and on the same terms, annual repayments on old and new loans would overtake fresh lending in 2036, the researchers found.

“By not making the backflows of climate finance visible, Global North countries cheat their public,” John Nordbo, senior climate adviser at CARE Denmark, told Climate Home News. “They give an impression that they are actually more supportive than they are.” 

Finance takes centre stage at COP31

The World Bank is by far the biggest lender in the portfolio, followed by Japan and France. Overall, loans worth $489 billion will cost borrowers an estimated $663 billion over their lifetimes.

Climate finance looks certain to become a central issue at COP31 after developing nations scored an early win by getting a new work programme on climate finance added to the summit’s official agenda. 

A key question looming over the talks in Türkiye is how rich countries will make good on their promise to deliver at least $300 billion a year in climate finance by 2035, amid shrinking aid budgets and spending redirected to other priorities, including defence.

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Nordbo said the delivery of the climate finance goal agreed two years ago in Baku depends heavily on multilateral development banks and the private sector, ushering in the risk of an even larger share of loans. 

Loans already make up most public climate finance. Developed countries provided $101.6 billion in public climate finance in 2024, two-thirds of it as loans, according to the OECD.

“That’s the preferred solution to the climate finance issue right now,” he said. “It doesn’t really seem sustainable.”

Debt trap

The repayments add to a wider debt squeeze on the Global South. Developing countries paid a record $1.4 trillion in principal and interest in 2025, a fifth consecutive annual increase, according to the World Bank’s International Debt Report, published last week.

Countries at the frontline of the climate crisis are among the hardest hit. Almost 94% of the most climate-vulnerable countries are in, or at significant risk of, debt distress, and they spend nearly 25 times more on debt repayments than on climate action, according to a September report by ActionAid. 

CARE accepts that concessional loans can make sense for climate projects that generate revenue. But it argues they are the wrong tool to fund adaptation measures that protect lives rather than produce income, as well as for countries recovering from climate disasters or already in debt distress.

The post Developing countries face climate finance deficit as loan payments soar appeared first on Climate Home News.

COP31 has finally kicked off in the sunny seaside resort of Antalya – at least for those lucky enough to have made it through the long queues snaking around the sprawling expo centre where the UN climate conference is taking place. 

The joint COP presidents, Türkiye’s Murat Kurum and Australia’s Chris Bowen, have presented their priorities to fellow diplomats – including a new goal on electrification, the establishment of a just transition mechanism and better access to climate finance – before the negotiations begin in earnest. 

Kurum announced that issues around the summit’s agenda had been resolved over the weekend. African countries had pushed for additional items on adaptation finance and trade, while Nepal wanted formal discussions on mountain issues in the wake of the devastating flooding disaster that struck the country.

The African request was shelved after late-night talks agreed to tackle adaptation finance across different strands of the negotiations. That could happen under the Global Goal on Adaptation or a broader work programme for climate finance, which won a place on the agenda following pressure from developing countries.

A standalone item on mountains and climate change was not adopted but it will be a subject for ongoing consultations, with fresh dialogues proposed on the topic. Nepal told the plenary that the compromise “falls short of our expectations” and it wants its asks to be reflected in the COP31 cover decision.

COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit?

In his speech to the opening plenary, Australia’s environment minister Chris Bowen, who will preside over the negotiations in Antalya, outlined the COP co-presidents’ expectations for the cover decision that will offer a summary of the talks’ main achievements.

“There will be no surprises. This is not about duplicating negotiations. It will not be a lengthy political declaration, but a focused, practical, concrete response to the challenges and opportunities before us,” Bowen said.

It will be “a decision that reflects the urgency of the climate challenge and the enormous opportunities created by the global transition. One that gives confidence to governments, investors, businesses, communities that the world is moving faster and working together,” he added.

Delegates queue to pick up their badges on the first day of COP31 in Antalya, Turkiye, November 9, 2026 (Photo: Vivian Chime/Climate Home News) Delegates queue to pick up their badges on the first day of COP31 in Antalya, Turkiye, November 9, 2026 (Photo: Vivian Chime/Climate Home News) UN climate chief says electrification and methane cuts offer “planetary icepack” 

At the opening of the two-week climate talks, with the world now facing an overshoot of the 1.5C warming limit and “fossil fuel chaos”, UN climate chief Simon Stiell reminded governments that “progress is nowhere near fast or fair enough”.  

He said COP31 must “supercharge solutions” to triple adaptation funding as agreed last year, ease access to climate finance, triple global renewables capacity by 2030, transport electricity across grids and borders, and slash methane emissions from the oil and gas, and waste industries.

“Together, action on methane and electrification are a planetary icepack – able to cut half a degree from projected global heating,” Stiell emphasised. Concrete advances on these two issues are not expected to come from the formal talks but rather voluntary initiatives, including a new goal for electricity to account for around a third of the world’s energy consumption by 2035. 

Clean power shields China from oil shock more than any other country

Stiell was careful not to oversell what the COP31 conference in Antalya can achieve, noting that “no COP is a silver bullet” and “no single conference can bridge the chasm between the science and reality”.

To narrow that gap, the UN climate body aims to “rally more doers across economies” and help governments increase collaboration with businesses and civil society, its boss said.

Stiell also stressed the importance of getting good results from the formal negotiations on things like setting up a new just transition mechanism and boosting finance. “The stronger the outcomes, the more they will help [governments] convert their [climate] targets into real-world outcomes, spreading more benefits to more people,” he added.

UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell delivers opening remarks at COP31 in Antalya, Turkiye on November 9, 2026 (Photo: © UN Climate Change – Kiara Worth) UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell delivers opening remarks at COP31 in Antalya, Turkiye on November 9, 2026 (Photo: © UN Climate Change – Kiara Worth) “We cannot surrender”: High Ambition Coalition rallies around 1.5C as overshoot looms

At the first COP to be staring at an almost inevitable breach of the 1.5C warming limit, countries in the High Ambition Coalition said on Monday that the success of the summit will be judged by how well the world responds to the looming threat of an overshoot. 

Twenty ministers spanning European, Pacific island, Latin American and African nations vowed to keep the 1.5C goal “within reach”, and to reverse warming as quickly as possible after an overshoot, through “deep, rapid and sustained emissions reduction” and the transition away from fossil fuels. 

“Overshoot must never become an excuse for inaction,” said Jess Gasper Jr., Marshall Islands minister-in-assistance to the president and environment.

Recalling that residents of the Bikini Atoll, the constituency he represents, were already forced to leave their homes because of nuclear testing by the US government in the 1940s, he said he “refused to accept that another generation of Marshallese face displacement because the world fails to act” on climate change.

Ministers from countries including the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Fiji, Panama, Sierra Leone and Antigua and Barbuda supported the HAC statement, which also underlines the centrality of climate science and the need for a “substantial increase” in climate finance. 

Panama’s Ana Aguilar, chair of the AILAC group of progressive Latin American nations, said “we cannot surrender and leave aside the 1.5C goal”. “It still remains the limit, not only scientific but also a moral one,” she added.

The HAC has been leading efforts to get governments at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to agree on a timeline for its next flagship climate reports to align with the next UN assessment of global climate action which ends in late 2028. The UN panel is currently deadlocked as a group of nations, led by Saudi Arabia, India and Russia, have opposed that schedule, claiming it would make it harder for developing country scientists to contribute.

The ministers did not directly respond to a question from Climate Home News on whether they will be asking the COP presidency to include a reference to the IPCC timeline in the cover decision, expected to be the main political outcome of the summit. 

But Gabriel Kpaka from Sierra Leone said the African country wants the recognition of the “best available science” as one of COP31’s conclusions. 

IPCC scientists vow to press on with climate reports despite political deadlock

On finance, a thorny issue in Antalya like at most COPs, HAC members said they had held extensive discussions internally given the presence in the group of both rich countries and vulnerable nations needing more climate cash. 

Heike Henn, state secretary at Germany’s environment ministry, said the coalition “and beyond” needed a frank discussion on finance. “Anything less would fall short of what this coalition is about,” she said, while acknowledging the pressures on Germany’s budget created by increased military spending and economic challenges.

The German government provided €4.7 billion in climate finance in 2025, according to government figures released last month. That missed its target of at least €6 billion for the year. But Henn added that HAC members can still find solutions to mobilise more money and “find better ways to support each other”. 

Panama’s Aguilar said developing countries will keep proclaiming their need for more climate finance, but, at the same time, “we also have to understand their [donor nations’] constraints”.

IPCC chief urges governments to decide on report timeline

The chair of the world’s top climate science body has urged governments to take a long-delayed decision on when its next reports should be published so that they can steer climate action.

“Climate action without climate science is rather like a ship without a rudder,” said Jim Skea, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

He told the opening session of COP31 that the IPCC “faces operational challenges and reputational risks from the current impasse on the timeline for our three working group reports”.

Since 2024, governments have been unable to agree on whether the AR7 set of reports should be published before or after the next Global Stocktake (GST) of national climate plans in late 2028. 

If the flagship reports are published before, they can feed into the agreed response to the second GST. At COP28, the first GST outcome included the landmark commitment to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. 

IPCC chair Jim Skea at the panel’s session in October 2026. (Photo: IISD/ENB | Danny Skilton) IPCC chair Jim Skea at the panel’s session in October 2026. (Photo: IISD/ENB | Danny Skilton)

Europe, small islands and the least developed countries, plus many Latin American and developed nations, want the IPCC to meet the deadline to inform the second GST. 

But around a dozen developing countries plus Russia – led by India and Saudi Arabia – have argued that the reports should come later in order to allow for greater research input from the Global South.

After talks failed and were suspended last month, governments and IPCC scientists will try again to resolve the issue in virtual talks beginning on December 1.

Despite this disagreement among governments, Skea said the IPCC’s “scientific engine room is humming with activity” as scientists continue their work. But, as they are unpaid for their IPCC work, they are finding it increasingly difficult to find time for it alongside their “busy professional and personal lives”.

“In my early days in IPCC, we could plan our meetings literally years ahead. Now our authors don’t know what is expected of them in the early months of 2027,” he lamented.

UN: El Niño unleashing heat from hottest oceans ever measured

As negotiations get underway in Antalya, a new sobering update on the state of the Earth’s climate from the UN’s weather agency should focus minds. 

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says the world’s oceans now hold more heat than ever measured. A rapidly strengthening El Niño is releasing some of that heat into the atmosphere, pushing temperatures higher on a planet already baked by human-caused climate change.

“El Niño and indeed the state of the global climate in 2026 gives new meaning to the phrase off the charts,” said the WMO’s Secretary General Celeste Saulo. “El Niño doesn’t add new heat to the planet. It releases heat from the ocean, which is the warmest ever measured. There is simply more heat available to release.”

The UN agency says 2026 is on track to be one of the four warmest years on record globally. That would make 2023 to 2026 the four hottest years in 177 years of observations. The global average temperature from January to September was 1.47°C above pre-industrial levels, just below 2024’s record of 1.55°C. The agency expects the final figure for the year to be higher as one of the strongest El Niños on record takes hold.

The current El Niño – a naturally occurring climate pattern – is expected to peak in December and continue until at least February 2027. As a result, the WMO expects global average temperatures to remain “exceptionally” high through late 2026 and into early 2027. 

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Bill Hare, CEO of the global science and policy institute Climate Analytics, said that while El Niño will command the headlines, “no one should be in any doubt that the bigger villain is man-made climate change”. 

According to the WMO, El Niño typically adds around 0.1–0.2°C to annual global average temperatures. That is a fraction of the warming of more than 1.4°C recorded last year, which is primarily caused by greenhouse gas emissions mainly from burning fossil fuels. 

UN boss António Guterres said a “supersized El Niño is colliding with a planet already superheated by manmade climate change”. 

“Leaders must get serious by cutting emissions faster, accelerating a just transition from fossil fuels and delivering the finance and protection vulnerable countries need, “ he added.

Graphic: WMO State of the Climate Update 2026 Graphic: WMO State of the Climate Update 2026

At the COP31 opening ceremony, a Turkish promotional video struck a suitably apocalyptic note, implying that while nature and life on the planet will continue, humanity may not be a part of it unless countries choose to step up action to curb global warming.

Laggards Egypt and Argentina submit 2035 NDCs

Twenty one months after the UN’s initial deadline, almost all major countries have now submitted their updated national climate plans (NDCs) covering the period to 2035. 

With Egypt and Argentina sending theirs to the UN over the last few days, Vietnam and the DR Congo are the only significant emitters that do not have a 2035 NDC, aside from Iran and the US, which are not parties to the Paris Agreement. The DR Congo has failed to even engage with the Paris Agreement’s committee on the issue.

Egypt’s new NDC aims for more cuts in emissions from electricity, oil and gas and transport by 2035, while Argentina’s has the same targeted annual emissions limit (375 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent) for 2035 as it does for 2030, meaning no additional cuts are required during those five years.

When asked why its plan arrived so late, Argentina’s environment secretary said the delayed submission was “a political decision”.

On Sunday in Buenos Aires, Pope Leo XIV addressed the issue of environmental protection in front of Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who has dismantled environmental policies and denied climate science.

“A truly human ecology knows how to unite the care of creation with that of people, ensuring that the use of these [planetary] resources contributes to the wellbeing of communities and preserves the conditions that make life and work possible in their territories,” the pope said on Sunday.

Dublin to host a Santa Marta pre-summit next year

As Ireland and Tuvalu chair the second conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels next year, the countries will host a preliminary event in Dublin as well as the main event in Tuvalu, the Pacific nation’s climate minister Maina Talia told Climate Home News on Monday.

Talia said that the dates for the summit in the Irish capital are not yet confirmed while the high-level conference is set to take place in the last week of July in Tuvalu.

The preliminary summit is meant to host “stakeholders” such as civil society and academics but is unlikely to be attended by ministers. Talia added that both countries “will continue to keep the Santa Marta spirit alive”.

Tuvalu has a population of just over 10,000 people and very few places to stay. It is one of the countries most at risk from sea level rise and this year it co-hosted a COP31 special leader’s event alongside Fiji, which placed the Pacific’s climate vulnerability in the spotlight. However, it only received around 30 high-level government representatives.

At this year’s conference in Santa Marta, before the high level event with governments, Colombia also hosted a science pre-conference – mostly attended by academics and civil society – as well as a summit for subnational governments.

In Antalya, the Netherlands will host an official handover event with Ireland and Tuvalu towards the end of the second week of COP. Colombia has a new government which regards the Santa Marta conference held by its predecessor as a “waste of time and money”.

Heike Henn, Germany’s state secretary at the Ministry of Environment, said that it is “very important” for the coalition to keep momentum growing in Antalya, given it will be more than a year between the first and second conference.

The post COP31 Bulletin Day 1: Agenda settled as COP urged to “supercharge solutions” appeared first on Climate Home News.

As an extreme El Niño breaks marine temperature records, COP31 is set to boost the profile of the ocean’s role in solving climate change, but finance and clear conservation measures will be needed for it to move the needle, experts said.

The Turkish presidency has announced plans for an Antalya Ocean Declaration that recognises the centrality of the global ocean – the world’s largest carbon sink – in regulating the climate and minimising the now unavoidable overshoot of global temperatures above 1.5C over pre-industrial levels.

Meanwhile, as part of the formal UN negotiations, Australia has announced plans to land a cover decision in Antalya, which, according to veteran former US negotiator Sue Biniaz, would be the only section of the formal negotiations where the role of oceans could be included.

She added that an outcome at COP31 seems likely, given the initiative from both presidencies and a push from over 100 countries – including Brazil, the EU and the African Group of countries – calling for the UN negotiations to deliver a plan for implementing ocean measures.

Governments will arrive in Antalya with a “super El Niño” adding stress to marine ecosystems and expected to continue to intensify until December 2026, with parts of the Pacific averaging almost 30C (86F) – over 3C more than normal – in October, according to monthly EU sea temperature data.

• Nov 5, 2026 News COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit? Electrification, the fossil fuel transition, adaptation to rising impacts, climate science and trade are key themes as governments gather for COP31 in Türkiye Read more
• Nov 6, 2026 News European nations signal support for fossil fuel roadmap, says COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago told Climate Home News that it’s up to other nations to decide how the fossil fuel and deforestation roadmaps are used Read more
• Nov 6, 2026 News Nepal seeks stronger recognition of mountain issues in UN climate process Flood-hit Nepal wants COP31 to adopt a new agenda item formalising work on mountains and climate change and boosting the response to rising risks Read more

Needs for ocean conservation and funding

While elevating the ocean agenda is “critical”, it must lead to funding for ocean conservation and a clear plan for reaching the global target – set at UN biodiversity talks in 2022 – of protecting 30% of the global ocean by 2030, said Pradeep Singh, senior ocean governance expert at Oceano Azul Foundation.

The ocean is precisely where governments are farthest off track from meeting this target – informally known as the 30×30 goal. Even if countries meet all their nature conservation plans, only about 12% of the global ocean would be protected, the UN says.

“Acknowledgement of marine protected areas and the 30×30 target as climate infrastructures will certainly boost efforts and funding for science and management,” Singh told Climate Home News.

Shamini Selvaratnam, director of international climate and clean energy at Ocean Conservancy, said an ocean commitment that makes a difference in coastal communities “takes funding, local capacity and support that countries can actually access”.

An analysis by climate think-tank Zero Carbon Analytics shows that investment in the blue economy – through activities like sustainable fisheries or cleaner shipping – is only at about 2% of the needs, which are estimated at $550 billion per year.

Divers survey the extent of bleaching in the Chagos archipelago (Credit: Living Oceans Foundation) Following-through on commitments

Selvaratnam added that countries must also establish mechanisms to follow through on these measures, which currently exist only in the form of a non-binding dialogue that is not expected to produce any negotiated agreements.

She said that countries at COP31 must find ways for their ocean commitments to inform the next global stocktake, the UN’s five-yearly review of progress on climate action. Some countries – including African countries, Latin American nations, small island states and the European Union – have backed a process that culminates in the next global stocktake.

At climate negotiations, countries are not mandated to include ocean conservation measures in their climate plans. But a group of countries led by France and Brazil is pushing them to do so voluntarily through an initiative called Blue NDC Challenge. Seventeen countries have joined the initiative so far.

In its list of COP31 priorities, the EU has called for the “critical role” of oceans to be recognised, but falls short of calling for any specific actions to feature marine action more prominently in climate plans.

As part of their demands, ocean campaign groups have called for the establishment of an “Antalya Ocean Compact”, a platform where countries can coordinate efforts across different environmental treaties, including the UN climate, biodiversity and high seas negotiations.

Ultimately, Selvaratnam said a strong deal “must accelerate emissions cuts, clean energy, and a transition away from fossil fuels, including offshore oil and gas”.

Ilana Seid, chair of the AOSIS group of small island states and permanent representative of Palau to the UN, said during a press briefing last week that “meaningful progress” on emissions reduction is “the best way” to alleviate stress on the ocean.

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In the wake of its recent glacial flooding disaster, Nepal and the kingdom of Bhutan have proposed a new agenda item on mountains and climate change for the COP31 summit which opens on Monday in the Turkish city of Antalya.

In a submission addressed to the COP31 presidency and the head of the UN climate secretariat (UNFCCC), Nepal said the agenda item, entitled “1.5°C Warming in Mountains”, is an effort to strengthen the response of the international community to the climate risks facing the world’s mountain regions.

The item proposes that mountain issues should become a regular part of the formal UN climate change process, with a focus on scientific assessment of the risks associated with warming overshooting 1.5C, an annual high-level dialogue, a dedicated work programme and improved access to climate finance.

Maheshwar Dhakal, chief of the climate change management division of Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Environment, told Climate Home News that Himalayan countries face similar problems such as collapsing glaciers and flooding from glacial lakes. 

“We are trying to bring all Himalayan countries together under this agenda item,” he said.

COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit?

At this year’s UN General Assembly, Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah called for strong global action to ensure climate justice and proposed creating a Himalayan Climate Resilience Mechanism led by India, China and Nepal. It would share satellite data, monitor glacial slopes and lakes, strengthen early warning systems and coordinate cross-border disaster response.

Nepal has experienced significant infrastructure losses and human casualties from flooding every year since 2020. In late August, the collapse of a glacial slope on the border with Tibet caused a torrent of water and debris to course down the Bhote Koshi River, leaving more than 6,000 people dead or missing.

According to a government needs assessment, the disaster caused an estimated $2.7 billion in physical damage and economic losses, while around $4.8 billion will be required for recovery and reconstruction.

More research needed on threats

Although high mountain regions are known to be fragile ecosystems, especially as global warming accelerates glacier melt, the extent of their vulnerability is still not fully understood. When the devastating Bhote Koshi floods hit, it opened the eyes of the world to the risks.

Dhakal said the Bhote Koshi floods “have proved the impacts of climate change in the Himalayan region”, which were linked to rising temperatures by scientists with the World Weather Attribution group. “Therefore, Nepal wants scientific studies, research and political discussions on mountain climate risks to receive greater attention at international climate conferences,” he added.

Nepal has been making efforts on this front since 2009, when it held a cabinet meeting at Kalapatthar near Mount Everest. Since COP28 in Dubai, Nepal has organised high-level events and dialogues on mountain issues at COPs and is co-hosting one at COP31 with Bhutan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

Editor’s Desk: Nepal’s disaster has laid bare the world’s adaptation accountability gap

Dhakal said the dialogues held so far have raised awareness, but mountain concerns must become part of the formal UN climate process to unlock climate finance and technical support that can bolster countries’ capacity to tackle climate threats.

If specific indicators and priorities are developed for mountain regions, vulnerable developing countries like Nepal would have better access to finance to help them adapt to the climate warming they have done very little to cause, he added.

More detailed data would enable them to prepare stronger project proposals for international climate funds, including the Green Climate Fund (GCF). In 2025, the GCF backed a project to protect livelihoods from climate-induced flooding in Nepal but it took seven years to get approval.

Sindhu Dhungana, an alternate board member at the GCF, said the problem is becoming more widespread and urgent for the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.

“The economies, cultures and almost everything in Himalayan countries depend on mountains,” he explained. “For us, climate change is mountain change… [it has] affected everything, including the economy and biodiversity.”

Debris and mud cover buildings in DevGhat village in Nepal (Photo: Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images) Debris and mud cover buildings in DevGhat village in Nepal (Photo: Ritesh Shukla/Getty Images) Destroyed development projects

Nepal wants the UN climate process to address mountain risks both before and after disasters. Countries need better research, technology, early warning systems and other adaptation measures to protect people and infrastructure. But even when countries take precautions, loss and damage is likely to occur and will require international support to address it.

Nepal has been provisionally allocated $21.6 million from the United Nations’ new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) to help with the aftermath of the Bhote Koshi disaster, but this is just a fraction of needs and the money will come only months after it made an initial request.

Dhakal pointed to the damage caused by floods to infrastructure built with loans, such as the Melamchi Drinking Water Project, which received $312 million from the Asian Development Bank but was destroyed by a major flood in 2021, shortly after it began operating. The recent Bhote Koshi disaster wiped out a dozen hydropower facilities, as well as solar energy systems.  

Nepal flood destruction shows “limits to adaptation”, scientists say

Nepal wants international discussions on what should happen when climate-related disasters destroy development projects built using credit, and how the loans should be treated afterwards.

“Climatic disasters wash out… projects, but the burden of loan is still paid by Nepal,” Dhakal said.

For now, it remains unclear whether the opening session of COP31 will consider or adopt the proposed agenda item on mountains and climate change, with consultations on how to respond still underway among governments and the COP31 co-presidencies.

“If countries agree to discuss the proposal and include it in the agenda, that would be another step forward,” Dhakal said. “Further discussions in the coming years could gradually give the mountain agenda a stronger shape.”

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Some governments have backed using Brazil’s voluntary roadmaps on fossil fuels and deforestation to inform the next UN assessment of global climate action, a key process that concludes in 2028, the COP30 presidency told Climate Home News.

Brazil published the roadmaps on transitioning away from fossil fuels and on halting deforestation by 2030 this week, after failing to secure an agreement in Belém to make them part of formal negotiations. The documents set out a menu of policies countries could use to start acting on both issues straight away.

At their launch, Brazilian top climate officials argued the roadmaps could feed into the second stocktake negotiations. Through that process, due to start at this year’s COP, countries are meant to take stock of collective progress on climate action and decide on a plan to ramp up ambition in future policies.

In an interview with Climate Home News in London, COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago said that “some European governments” had signalled their support for the Brazil-led roadmaps to inform the global stocktake negotiations.

“I hope that there will be many other countries that may support this,” he said. “It’s not that you have to take the entire package, because who are we to come up with the solution? But some elements of the roadmaps may be useful.”

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Corrêa do Lago cautioned that countries might not publicly come forward to champion the lengthy documents at COP31, because “governments have to read [the roadmaps] and they have to be very careful”.

The fossil fuel roadmap invites countries to draw up their own domestic plans to cut fossil fuel use and production and build clean energy systems by 2028, while putting the main push on cutting coal, oil and gas supply after 2031. The deforestation roadmap urges countries to use existing tools to ramp up finance and forest monitoring, and to tackle harmful trade incentives, among other measures.

Santa Marta coalition could put roadmap to use

As his presidency draws to a close, Corrêa do Lago said Brazil would keep championing the roadmaps but that “others will decide” whether they are taken up in the formal UN negotiations. Those talks, where decisions require consensus among nearly 200 countries, might not be the best venue, he added.

He suggested a potential home for the fossil fuel roadmap, outside of the UN negotiations, could be the Santa Marta process. A group of nearly 60 governments met for the first time in April in Colombia to discuss how to wean their economies off fossil fuels.

Countries in Santa Marta signalled their interest in developing national roadmaps away from fossil fuels, as well as building trade systems that favour renewable energy and reforming global finance to remove barriers to the energy transition.

Corrêa do Lago said the coalition “can have a very important role” in putting the fossil fuel roadmap to use, because its members are already focused on implementation and could use the roadmap and “even perfect it”.

Clean power shields China from oil shock more than any other country

UK says there’s no time to waste

Speaking alongside the COP30 president at an event in London, UK climate envoy Rachel Kyte said the transition away from fossil fuels was “in danger of becoming just a slogan”. She praised Brazil for “helping us turn it into a planning principle” despite the lack of consensus in the formal UN talks.

But Kyte added that the speed at which countries constrain fossil fuel supply was “critical”. Pointing to soaring oil and gas prices, which have put energy policy at the centre of debate in countries such as the UK, she said: “I don’t think we got time to wait until the early 2030s.”

Brazil is among the countries still planning an expansion of oil and gas exploration, with recently re-elected President Lula da Silva saying recent discoveries near the Amazon river could be “a passport to the country’s future”.

Kyte added that the UK “would come right behind this roadmap and agree that you have done something diplomatically that we needed”, and said it is important for COP31 co-presidencies Australia and Türkiye, as well as COP32 president Ethiopia, to “find a way to move this forward”.

The post European nations signal support for fossil fuel roadmap, says COP30 president appeared first on Climate Home News.

Özgür Özel is the leader of Turkey’s main opposition “New Party” and a member of parliament from Manisa.

The world is running out of time to deliver on the Paris Agreement. The UN Environment Programme’s latest Emissions Gap Report concludes that the chance of keeping warming below 1.5C without overshooting it is gone. Even if every country delivers its current national pledges, the planet is heading for about 2.6C of warming this century.

This is the backdrop as governments and their leaders gather in Antalya for COP31, ten years after the Paris Agreement took effect. Turkey lies in the Mediterranean, one of the regions most exposed to climate change, and hosting the summit is a real opportunity.

It is also a responsibility, and that responsibility begins at home. The world does not lack targets. What it has lacked – almost everywhere – is delivery. If Antalya is remembered for anything, it should be for shifting the focus from what countries promise to what they actually do.

For many people in Turkey, the climate crisis is already part of daily life. In 2021, forests in Manavgat, a district of Antalya, burned for more than a week. Last year, wildfires forced more than 50,000 people from their homes around the western coast city of Izmir. This October, Istanbul had its heaviest rainfall in more than 80 years, with the floods killing at least eight people.

• Nov 5, 2026 News COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit? Electrification, the fossil fuel transition, adaptation to rising impacts, climate science and trade are key themes as governments gather for COP31 in Türkiye Read more
• Nov 3, 2026 News Brazil’s fossil fuel roadmap sketches out first global timetable The COP30 presidency’s voluntary timetable asks countries to plan first, then build up clean energy – only turning to oil and gas supplies from 2031 Read more

Measurable outcomes

Two weeks of climate negotiations cannot deliver everything that is needed to resolve the crisis, but COP31 can push for a few things that can be measured. The first is a voluntary fossil-fuel transition roadmap, with national milestones for 2030 and 2035 reported in the same format every year.

The second is a stronger commitment to protecting forests, with progress tracked over time. The third is yearly reporting on progress towards the agreed $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance by 2035, backed by a financial roadmap.

On adaptation, the indicators agreed in Belém should become funded national plans. By COP32, we should be able to see how many countries have an adaptation plan and the financial commitment behind each one.

Regional resilience partnership

The summit also has an unusual shape. Turkey hosts, Australia leads the negotiations, and the Pacific island nations play a central role. Climate diplomacy now sits at the centre of energy security, trade and development, and Turkey, which bridges developed and developing economies, is well placed to help build consensus between them. The lasting value of its presidency will depend on the practical partnerships it leaves behind.

One such partnership could connect two very different regions. On a map, the Mediterranean and the Pacific seem to have little in common, but their problems look similar: eroding coastlines, salt creeping into aquifers, failing harvests, fishing towns with fewer fish.

Turkey and Australia could launch a Mediterranean–Pacific Climate Resilience Partnership, linking coastal cities, scientists, institutions including development banks and island governments. It does not need a new bureaucracy. It can start with a few projects: shared satellite data and early-warning systems, better coastal flood defences, and trials of water-saving farming in the communities most at risk. What matters is visible results on the ground, not a ceremony.

Photo: IRENA@COP31 Photo: IRENA@COP31 Turkey’s track record

Turkey does have progress to point to. It has committed to net zero by 2053, and its solar and wind capacity has grown fast. The sunshine, the wind and the industrial base are all there. But the long-term direction of the energy mix is still unclear.

Turkey also signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use at COP26, pledging to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. With four years left, COP31 is a chance to show how that promise will be kept.

COP30 roadmap says faster use of existing tools can halt forest loss by 2030

And while the summit celebrates zero waste, Turkey took in more than half a million tons of European plastic waste last year, much of it bound for Mersin and Adana. On November 21, the day after COP31 closes, an EU ban on plastic-waste exports to non-OECD countries takes effect. Turkey, as an OECD member, is exempt. That should worry us more than it seems to.

None of this will carry much weight unless Turkey’s own record holds up. A leadership at odds with its own environment and its own citizens will struggle to inspire global confidence in its commitment to protecting the planet.

Threat to local climate action

Cities are where adaptation happens. Water, flood protection, waste and urban planning fall largely to municipalities. That is why the imprisonment and removal of more than 50 elected opposition mayors, including the mayor of Istanbul, matter for environment and climate policy, as well as for democracy.

When local leadership is disrupted, investment plans stall and work on flood defences and water supplies loses continuity. As a result, local governments are left paralysed.

Comment: From Australia to Chile, our cities are driving a green investment boom

Inconsistent policymaking when it comes to the environment and climate deepens the problem in Turkey as it does in other countries. A few practical steps would make a real difference.

Set out a gradual, well-planned energy transition. Stop new construction in streambeds and drinking-water basins and put zoning maps online. Inspect every imported plastic shipment and cap total imports. Hold public hearings on environmental impact assessments before permits are issued, not after. And publish an independently audited climate scorecard each year covering emissions, renewables capacity, forest loss and adaptation spending.

This could set an example beyond Turkey. Many emerging economies are trying to cut emissions while protecting jobs and keeping industry competitive. Digital tools and artificial intelligence are already available to help forecast wildfire risk, reduce grid losses and track water use.

With the 1.5C limit now set to be breached, Antalya’s success will be measured by the greenhouse gases avoided, the investments delivered and the forests still standing in the years that follow. It is our responsibility to watch closely and see whether those commitments are delivered, transparently and in line with international standards.

The post Turkey must make COP31 a turning point for global climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.

As oil companies pull out of Argentina’s oil heartland in the Patagonian province of Chubut, workers and communities are struggling to secure their future, with little say in the decisions being made about it.

“The impacted are fragmented, the exploiters organised,” said José Glinski, a member of parliament from the province.

In Comodoro Rivadavia, where Argentina’s oil industry began in 1907, those words carry particular weight. For nearly 120 years, oil has shaped the city’s economy and that of Chubut province, which helped power Argentina for decades. Now the companies that built their fortunes there are shifting their investments elsewhere, threatening an economy that has depended on oil for generations.

Argentina’s national oil company, YPF, whose roots lie in Comodoro Rivadavia, is selling off its mature oilfields in the region to concentrate investment in the shale oil and gas reserves of Vaca Muerta, further north. According to Glinski, around 10,000 direct jobs have gone in Chubut, and unemployment has climbed from 2% to 10% in a single year.

“And this while all remaining companies have kept extremely high levels of profit,” he said.

COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit?

Glinski blames government policy as much as the companies. “Companies are choosing to leave and the government lets them do so, while weakening tax and environmental regulations, leaving the city without the necessary income to organise the transition.”

Nobody has yet worked out who will clean up the old fields and more than 6,000 wells, look after the workers who remain, or pay for whatever comes next. 

Comodoro Rivadavia is not alone. From Mejillones and Tocopilla in Chile to La Guajira in Colombia and Appalachia in the United States, from Scotland to Mpumalanga in South Africa and East Kalimantan in Indonesia, places built around fossil fuels for generations face some version of the same problem. As investment moves elsewhere, plans to protect workers, support communities and repair damaged land often lag far behind, if they exist at all.

Building an economy beyond fossil fuels

In Comodoro, as locals call the city, the community has not been passively waiting for oil to run out.

“We have looked into multiple alternatives for the territory, including building on geothermal capacity, an agricultural programme that could reinforce food security and focus on cultures that are not too water dependent, and exploring also aquaculture built on local species,” explained Ruben Zárate, who heads Comodoro Conocimiento, a public agency created by the municipality to develop economic opportunities. “The only alternative is economic diversification.” 

But having ideas is one thing. Finding the money and securing the political support to put them into practice is another. In many countries, decisions that shape a region’s economy are made in the capital or in company boardrooms, and local authorities have little say, and few resources, when a major employer pulls out.

Glinski points to deals struck at the national level that leave communities without a meaningful say in decisions affecting their future.

“Some of the barriers relate to the absence of regulation of private actors which have negotiated conditions at the national level that prevent provinces or territories from capturing benefits that could be useful to fund the transition,” he said. “Comodoro had no voice in these deals.”

A billboard showing a campaign message, saying “YPF is leaving but the pollution remains – Who will take responsibility”? (Photo via CAN International) A billboard showing a campaign message, saying “YPF is leaving but the pollution remains – Who will take responsibility”? (Photo via CAN International)

One example is Argentina’s Large Investment Incentive Regime, known as RIGI, which offers substantial tax benefits and regulatory guarantees to major investors. Argentina’s Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN) has warned that this regime could also give large projects preferential access to water and energy at the expense of local communities and businesses, making it harder for regions to diversify their economies.

At root, it’s a question of power: who controls the money and the decisions, and whether the people who kept these industries running for generations have any control over what comes next.

“Comodoro, like most territories that developed around fossil fuels, is heavily dependent. Everyone knew the oil business would end, but none planned for it,” said Antonella Risso, a climate expert and community member. “Comodoro deserves a bright future. Its people have the capacity to chart a future for its next hundred years – a real Just Transition”.

What COP31 could do

Last year in Belém, governments agreed to develop a Just Transition Mechanism. At COP31 in Antalya they will negotiate how it should work, and civil society is pushing for a strong Belém-Antalya Mechanism (BAM) that can help channel resources for action on the ground.

Camila Mercure, a climate policy officer with FARN and a coordinator of CAN’s Just Transition working group, said, “For a city like Comodoro Rivadavia, the BAM could mean support to develop diversification plans, assess viable alternatives, and access public, grant-based finance to put them into practice.” 

“Workers and communities must have a meaningful role in shaping these plans, building on local knowledge and priorities. The aim should be to create decent livelihoods beyond fossil fuels and avoid alternatives that reproduce the same economic dependence, inequalities and environmental harm,” she said.

Why COP31 needs to start talking about just transition finance

The BAM could also put regions in touch with each other. Officials in Patagonia, northern Chile, Mpumalanga or East Kalimantan are wrestling with many of the same questions, and sharing what has worked would spare them from starting from scratch.

Then there are the companies. Fossil fuel producers should not be able to walk away from their workers, their environmental obligations and the towns that depended on them. The BAM could help regions share experiences and develop ways to hold companies accountable, ensuring they plan ahead and pay their fair share of the transition costs.

In Comodoro Rivadavia, the transition has already begun, without the community’s consent and with little support. COP31 is a chance to help places like it plan ahead, before the last company leaves rather than after.

The post When the oil companies leave, who pays? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Here’s an overview of issues to watch as governments, businesses and civil society head to the Turkish seaside resort of Antalya for two weeks of negotiations, leaders’ speeches, panel discussions and initiative launches. 

This is the first COP to be staring an almost certain overshoot of the 1.5C warming limit in the face, even as countries squabble over when the next UN science reports should be delivered. 

The geopolitical mood ahead of the annual talks, from November 9-20, has been sweetened somewhat by Lula’s surprise re-election in Brazil and American voters delivering a thumbs down to climate change-sceptic Donald Trump in the US midterms this week.

Still, neither of those things will make the talks much easier in practice, as fossil fuel-producing emerging economies are unlikely to want to make compromises on issues such as the energy transition and donor nations aren’t expected to turn up with much additional money for helping developing countries deal with worsening climate impacts.

With government budgets squeezed by ongoing conflicts and oil prices riding high after the Strait of Hormuz crisis, there will be a focus on the national benefits of boosting renewables, from a security and cost perspective. This advances the cause of the voluntary electrification goal proposed by Türkiye – which could be one of the biggest headlines from this COP.

Around the venue at COP31 (Photo: UNFCCC/Kiara Worth) How did we get here?

In terms of the mechanics of how COP31 will work, all eyes are on the relationship between the co-hosts Türkiye and Australia. This unusual splitting of the presidency roles wasn’t born out of love, despite the friendly demeanour the country’s two environment ministers displayed at the pre-COP in Fiji.

The deal, for Türkiye to host the COP on its soil and run the non-negotiated Action Agenda side of things while Australia manages the formal negotiations, was reached last year after Ankara steadfastly refused to back down in the face of greater support for its rival. It’s all smiles for now, with Australia backing the Turkish-championed electrification goal and early signalling in Fiji that both COP31 teams will work on producing a COP cover decision, summarising key outcomes and setting the political direction for the year ahead.

Türkiye says it has “final decision” at COP31 despite Australia running negotiations

But what if they disagree on how things are going? That’s where it could get awkward. As we have reported, Türkiye is adamant it will have the final say over what happens in Antalya. Ahead of the COP, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been criticised by rights campaigners for cracking down on civil liberties in the country, while COP31 attendees have been warned not to interfere in Türkiye’s internal affairs. Apparently government approval for the traditional COP climate protest due to take place on Saturday is still pending.

The view from Climate Home News

With the opening plenary scheduled for Monday, Australia is doing its best to try to avoid an agenda fight at the start. African countries have submitted requests for additional items including on adaptation finance and trade.

Nepal, which is still struggling with the aftermath of August’s huge flash flood, has also thrown its hat into the ring, requesting an agenda item to kick off a formal work programme on mountains and climate change. A row over what to discuss even before the talks start is never a good look, but it’s unclear how Australia is going to settle this ahead of time.

Later in the week – on November 11 and 12 – the leaders’ segment takes place. The early speaking list shows a relatively low-key turnout, with the few big hitters including Brazil’s Lula, the UK’s Andy Burnham and Spain’s Pedro Sanchez. India and China aren’t sending their top men. We’ll be listening out for whether leaders commit to the electrification goal, national plans for transitioning away from fossil fuels and cutting deforestation, and/or any new pledges of climate finance.

Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31

On the last of these, it’s likely to be slim pickings, with the EU saying it’s coming empty-handed. The Adaptation Fund will be seeking contributions from donor governments as will the new Pacific Resilience Facility. African and other developing countries will push for a number to be put on last year’s vague goal to triple adaptation finance by 2035, as well as talks on how to get there. If rich nations refuse to budge at all, we expect fireworks.

Towards the end of the talks, all eyes will be on the cover decision – what goes into it and what doesn’t. Key elements that could be in there, according to Australia, include some wording on the 1.5C overshoot, the electrification goal, cutting methane emissions, early warning systems, improved access to finance for climate-vulnerable countries and nature-based solutions including more action to protect forests and oceans.

The elephants in the room will be whether and how to incorporate the new global roadmap on transitioning away from fossil fuels into the formal COP outcome and any specification – wanted by the EU, for example – that the new electrification goal should be achieved using largely clean sources of power.

Fossil fuel transition and how to cut emissions

Having seemingly emerged from nowhere, the idea of a global fossil fuel roadmap became a flashpoint at last year’s summit in Belém. After countries fought bitterly over it in the formal negotiations, with only around half of countries in favour, COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago saved the day by promising to produce a voluntary roadmap.

Unveiled on November 3, the 182-page document sets out a voluntary three-stage timetable to 2033. Countries are advised to draw up national transition plans by 2028, in time for the next Global Stocktake, then prioritise building up clean energy in 2029–30, with the main push to cut fossil fuel production coming only from 2030 onwards.

The EU has made clear that the extension of the work programme is one of its priorities for the summit. 

It remains to be seen how the blueprint will be followed up. Brazilian officials have emphasised that it is not a formal document that needs to be negotiated.

But some governments, especially Europe and small island states, might lead a charge to try and include references to it in the COP31 cover decision, expected to be the summit’s main negotiated outcome. Fossil fuel-producing nations, meanwhile, have already made it clear that’s a no-no for them. 

In the formal negotiations, the hottest ticket is the mitigation work programme (MWP) – the dedicated track for discussing emission-cutting measures that’s barely made progress over the years, primarily due to stonewalling from fossil fuel producers like Saudi Arabia and Russia. 

After failing to agree on minimal conclusions last June in Bonn, countries now need to decide in Antalya whether this forum should continue to exist and, if so, in what form. 

The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and small island developing states want the MWP to continue with a stronger mandate more closely linked with efforts to deliver on the outcomes of the Global Stocktake, which in 2023 called for the transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. Emerging economies like Saudi Arabia, India and China are likely to fiercely oppose that framing. 

Science row set to rumble on

While it’s not on the negotiating table, climate science could carve out a more prominent place than at recent COPs. The context is stark: the UN now accepts that overshooting warming of 1.5C is unavoidable, and even its most optimistic scenario sees it peak at 1.7C–1.8C around mid-century before falling back again.

Some countries may push for COP31’s headline outcomes to acknowledge the overshoot and call for stronger efforts to limit it. Others may point to it as evidence that the world should abandon 1.5C altogether.

A bigger fight over science has been rumbling on elsewhere, at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but it is likely to cast a long shadow over proceedings in Antalya. The UN panel’s last meeting a few weeks ago was suspended after governments failed, for the sixth time, to agree on a timeline for its next flagship assessment. 

A majority of countries want the AR7 set of IPCC reports ready in time for the second global stocktake (GST) of climate action, due to end in November 2028. But a smaller group of developing nations, led by Saudi Arabia, India and Russia, have pushed back claiming this schedule would make it harder for developing-country scientists to contribute. While governments will continue discussions online at an extraordinary IPCC meeting in early December, some might push for the COP31 to send a signal.

One option floated by scientists and policy experts is for the COP31 cover decision to call on the IPCC to deliver its inputs to the GST in good time. And with the dispute now more political than technical, the presidency could use the presence of world leaders and ministers in Antalya to try to broker a deal that has so far eluded their more junior colleagues at the IPCC.

The “Friends of Science” press conference at UN climate talks in Bonn on June 17, 2026. Photo: Marie Jacquemine/Greenpeace) Electrification goal – a bright spot?

­COP31’s flagship initiative to accelerate the electrification of the world’s economy – which is part of the Action Agenda being led by Türkiye – has been criticised for failing to include a commitment to produce the power from clean energy. 

Governments that sign onto the voluntary pledge in Antalya will commit to increasing electricity’s share of total energy consumption to 35% globally by 2035 in line “with pathways consistent with keeping 1.5C alive”, the text put together by the Turkish presidency says.  

The pledge’s text says the electricity goal should be supported by “diverse and sustainable energy sources”, but stops short of explaining what these sources are. The goal is “complementary to efforts to expand renewable energy and improve energy efficiency”, but the “use of clean electricity” will vary according to national circumstances, it adds.

COP31 president Murat Kurum has said that the push to make electrification more “widespread” – through measures like the rollout of electric vehicles and heat pumps –  will “automatically” lead to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. But many campaigners disagree, criticising the proposed pledge for failing to give an explicit signal on the fossil fuel transition. 

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On Energy Day, on November 10, the Turkish presidency is expected to formally launch its flagship electrification pledge, revealing which countries have signed up. So far, Australia is on the list, and European countries are also likely to back it. India could well be a no, and China’s a maybe. 

Meanwhile, there are concerns over whether and how the world can meet the goal. Currently electricity’s share of final energy consumption is around 23-24% and to reach the target that will need to grow by around one percentage point a year. But based on current policies, it’s only set to reach 28% by 2035, according to a new analysis by Climate Action Tracker, with transport falling far behind despite rising sales of electric vehicles. 

Experts highlight the urgency of investing in bolstering grids and storage, especially in developing countries, which have not kept pace with fast-growing renewables capacity.

A new mechanism for just transition

A new mechanism to help countries transition to a cleaner world while reducing inequality is set to be one of the main deliverables from the climate summit, as stated by Australia. Civil society groups – which were pivotal in winning last year’s agreement in Brazil to set up a mechanism – want to see it established in Antalya and take shape over the coming year.

At the mid-year talks in Bonn, countries discussed the design features of the mechanism – including its scope, governance arrangements, structures and functions. The outcome was an informal preliminary note compiling a range of views and possible options. 

Exactly what the mechanism should cover, and what it should not, remain a contentious subject for governments. For example, the Like-Minded Developing Countries – a bloc of more than 20 low- and middle-income nations including China and India – and the Arab Group oppose it being used to push them to transition away from fossil fuels (TAFF). 

That contrasts with some Latin American and small island states who want to see the mechanism used as a way of furthering global commitments already made in 2023 on TAFF and tripling renewable energy by 2030. Developed countries, for their part, insist the mechanism should not put responsibility on them to provide new financial support. 

From Belém to Antalya – gains, gaps and challenges for a new Just Transition Mechanism 

Some experts want the new Just Transition Mechanism to lay out actions across different parts of the economy – not just to protect workers in the energy sector but also in agriculture and heavy industries. Others say it should be wider-ranging, making sure vulnerable people get a fair share of benefits from the green economy and efforts to build resilience.

Campaigners, who have nicknamed it the “Belém-Antalya Mechanism” (BAM), have come up with a proposal to keep the thorny issue of how to finance just transitions on the agenda while assuaging concerns that yet another UN fund will be set up and need to be filled at a rather barren time for climate finance. 

Climate Action Network International is pushing for a “resource mobilisation group” to be created under the BAM, which could explore and develop ways to boost the quantity, quality and governance of finance for just transition around the world, which is currently not well defined or tracked.

Campaigners call for a Belem Action Mechanism for a just transition (Photo: IISD ENB/Mike Muzurakis) Hunt for more adaptation cash amid surging impacts

As intensifying climate disasters, including floods, heatwaves and drought, continue to hit poor countries the hardest, calls for funding to help them cope have become central to their demands at the climate talks – and COP31 seems set for a new round of fights on  adaptation issues. 

In a new letter sent to the UNFCCC, African negotiators have asked for three new items, including adaptation finance, to be added into the formal negotiating agenda. 

At last year’s COP30, governments agreed to at least triple adaptation finance by a deadline of 2035 but without clarity on the baseline year for tripling, the amount to be delivered, who will pay and the mode of delivery. Countries also agreed to a set of indicators aimed at tracking national efforts to strengthen climate resilience, although these were weakened and cut down from an initial list of 100 to 59 indicators at the last minute. 

Last week, the chair of the African group, Antwi-Boasiako Amoah, told a media briefing that “nobody is even sure of the [tripling] baseline and then there’s no clarity on the pathways, and so it’s important for us to be able to get some visibility and some credibility in that aspect”.

Comment: COP31 must deliver finance for Africa or there will be no implementation

At the mid-year talks in Bonn in June, developed countries, mostly European governments, refused to include a target to triple adaptation finance by 2035 in the decision text for the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), casting doubt on their commitment to the goal.

And on Wednesday, a United Nations report found that, even if developed countries do triple adaptation finance by 2035, it would only meet about a third of developing countries’ needs.

Other issues up for negotiation on adaptation include deciding on how to put the GGA indicators into practice and where the Adaptation Fund sits within the UN climate architecture, as it needs to be given a mandate to serve the Paris Agreement and receive the proceeds of a 5% levy on UN carbon markets.

China and Africa keen to talk trade

China has made clear it wants COP31 to tackle the thorny issue of trade measures that prevent the free flow of cleantech equipment. As the world’s dominant manufacturer of clean energy technologies, this may be unsurprising. How far China is willing to push the issue in Antalya and what it hopes to achieve are less clear, however. 

The issue is poised to re-surface tensions about the use of tariffs and export controls to regulate the trade of both cleantech and emissions-intensive goods. 

Tensions set to flare over trade at COP31 as China makes it a priority

At COP30 in Brazil last year, trade became one of the talks’ most contentious issues after China and large emerging economies lobbied to get “unilateral trade measures” on the agenda – a move mostly targeting the EU’s carbon border levy on high-emission imports. 

Brazil proposed containing the discussions to a series of dialogues adjacent to the formal negotiations, with initial meetings taking place in Bonn in June. But these have yet to yield practical solutions on a way forward. 

Once again, observers anticipate trade to surface as one of the most prominent and challenging issues of the talks. The African Group of Negotiators has already requested an agenda item on trade in an effort to tie the ongoing trade dialogues to the formal negotiation process in the next two years, which is bound to get pushback from European countries. 

Ghanaian diplomat Antwi-Boasiako Amoah is the chair of the African Group. Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth Support for green industrialisation

Expanding clean technology manufacturing and decarbonising dirty industries has been creeping up the agenda of UN climate summits and has a prominent place on COP31’s non-negotiated Action Agenda.

Host Türkiye – which boasts a large industrial economy – made the issue a central pillar of its push to accelerate global emissions cuts to 2035.  

This includes the launch of a Green Industrialisation Facilitation Mechanism, which aims to help Least Developed Countries (LDCs) capitalise on rapidly expanding renewable energy and cleantech value chains to create jobs and spur economic growth.

The mechanism isn’t a new financing scheme but aims to help countries turn their industrial priorities into viable projects and connect them with technical expertise and existing finance.

Separately, an initiative to promote collaboration and exchange between governments, industry and financial institutions on cleantech production and industrial decarbonisation will be launched in Antalya. 

The Global Green Industrialization Agenda builds on a declaration endorsed by 19 countries in Belém last year, which called for a mechanism to support industrial strategies that are just, sustainable and provide economic opportunities in developing countries. It will be hosted by the UN Industrial Development Organization.  

Oceans emerge as top nature concern

With a super El Niño event shattering temperature records beneath the waves and weakening the planet’s largest carbon sink, protecting the ocean is an issue Türkiye and Australia seem to align on.

The Turkish presidency has ranked it high up its Action Agenda and is preparing a declaration on the topic, while Australia has signalled that a mention of ocean-based climate measures could be included in a cover decision. 

In the lead-up to COP, a coalition of over 100 nations, including Brazil, the EU and the group of African countries, has called for a strong ocean outcome at COP31. Unlike previous decisions that merely “recognise”  the ocean’s importance, they argue Antalya should deliver a plan for implementation of ocean measures.

Pacific islands have pushed strongly for this too, and as part of the pre-COP in Fiji, they also launched their own declaration calling for elevating the role of oceans in reducing emissions. Some countries have called for a longer-term process that culminates in the second Global Stocktake.

Pacific leaders rail at climate finance failures after pre-COP trip to Tuvalu

Veteran US negotiator Sue Biniaz said the outlook is relatively positive, with strong support from both presidencies and little pushback. Countries should now commit to ocean conservation measures as part of their climate plans, she said, which is something championed by the Blue NDC initiative outside of the formal talks.

Ilana Seid, the chair of the AOSIS group of small island states, said “the best way we can alleviate stress on the ocean is to transition away from fossil fuels”, which is something the Arab group of nations has warned against discussing in the context of ocean negotiations.

Unlike last year’s Amazon COP in Belém, action on deforestation has been almost entirely cut out of Türkiye’s Action Agenda. Still, some work has continued towards meeting a global goal of halting deforestation by 2030, including a COP30 presidency roadmap launched on November 3 by Brazilian officials. 

It outlines a menu of policies – including on protecting standing trees, channeling new finance and planting new forests – to reach the global goal, agreed three years ago in Dubai. Brazilian officials told the roadmap’s launch that it is up to countries to decide how they adopt these recommendations.

­

The post COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Irene Vélez Torres is the former Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development (2025-2026) and former Minister of Mines and Energy (2022-2023) of Colombia. Hon. Ralph Regenvanu is Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change, Adaptation, Meteorology and Geo-Hazards, and Energy.

Governments will gather next week in Antalya, Türkiye, for COP31, this year’s United Nations climate summit. Three years ago, at the same summit in Dubai, nearly every country on Earth agreed, for the first time, to work toward transitioning energy systems away from fossil fuels.

There is still no agreement on how to do it or where to start. One of us governed a fossil fuel producing-country in the Amazon; the other serves a Pacific Island state that has never extracted a barrel of oil. We have both tried to answer that question from inside our governments, and we want to share what we learned with the ministers who will try next.

Fossil Free zones are an ambitious step

Neither of our countries is rich. In 2024, fossil fuels still met more than three-quarters of Colombia’s energy demand, and coal and oil revenue help pay for schools and hospitals. In Vanuatu, children in Port Vila are still studying in tents three years after the last cyclone destroyed their classrooms.

We both took on the just transition challenge from vulnerable positions, with little support from the countries that bear the responsibility to act first and fastest. Still, we chose to lead with ambition.

This year’s events have made the case to phase out fossil fuels even clearer. When the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed in February, the world suffered what the head of the International Energy Agency called the largest energy supply shock in history.

The resultant energy crisis is what pushed countries in Santa Marta – 57 total countries representing nearly half the world’s GDP and approximately 20% of the global fossil fuel supply – to work toward a managed, equitable and just transition away from fossil fuels.

The ongoing global energy shock has laid bare the limitations of our current system and shown that the persistent reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable, for both people and planet.

In this vein, we have been clear on our stance that a healthy forest and a healthy ocean are not assets waiting to be drilled. That is why we have advocated strongly for Fossil Free Zones, or protected places where a government decides that oil, gas, and coal will never be extracted because what lives there is worth more left intact. It turns a vague global promise made in Dubai into a concrete line on the ground, or on the sea.

Lessons from Colombia and the Pacific

Colombia’s lesson: start where the numbers are clearest. In August, Colombia declared nearly 500,000 square kilometres of the Amazon, roughly 42 percent of the country, permanently closed to new mining, oil, and gas. It is the largest terrestrial Fossil Free Zone on the planet. 

Earth Insight found that drilling there would create billions of dollars in stranded assets while doing almost nothing for energy security. The decision was built with Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities, and campesinos, and backed by the largest investment in the region’s history in forest-based economies. A decision made with communities, rather than for them, grows deep roots.

Vanuatu’s lesson: replace the fuel, not just refuse to drill. From Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands in the west to Hawaii in the east, no fossil fuels are extracted, though vast reserves may lie beneath the seabed and pressures from industry destroy that grow.

However, Pacific nations do not want to dig them up – and making renewables the cheapest option, and securing the political commitments to protect these areas, means they will never have to. Vanuatu aims for 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030 and is on track to meet this goal in nearly every sector. Across its islands, small solar and hydro systems are built with public funds, run by local businesses, and welcomed by communities.

The shared lesson: small countries scale together. Pacific leaders have agreed to pool their efforts on renewable energy across the region. In April, Pacific Climate Ministers adopted the Tassiriki Call for a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific. At the Santa Marta Conference, they proposed the world’s first fossil fuel-free marine zone, an ambition we will carry to the Second Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Tuvalu next July.

Building momentum to move past challenges

We will be honest about the risks. Colombia’s new government has pledged to revive oil and gas exploration, and a ministerial resolution is relatively easy to overturn. Indeed, extractive interests have already driven the incoming government to revoke this Amazon protection just two months after taking office.

That is why such efforts cannot remain the experiment of a few countries. Vanuatu has championed a “multilateralism from the margins”, which is how it won the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion confirming that granting fossil fuel licenses can breach states’ legal obligations to protect the climate system. Decisions like ours endure when others make them too. Mexico and Guatemala have already walked similar paths, but more need to follow.

COP31 is the moment for more countries to join in these commitments, providing pathways toward the change we need. Any government can advance its transition away from fossil fuels by creating a Fossil Free Zone with tools it already holds: protected areas, Indigenous land titles, land and ocean planning, and energy licensing rules.

The just transition will reshape our forests and oceans either way. The only question is whether nature guides it or pays the price. Colombia and the Pacific Islands have drawn our lines. At COP31, we hope others will draw theirs.

The post Governments must embrace Fossil Free Zones as they head to COP31 appeared first on Climate Home News.

China’s rapidly-expanding clean energy generation and deepening electrification has made the country more resilient to energy shocks, bolstering its position ahead of the COP31 climate talks in Türkiye, where speeding up the world’s electrification is set to dominate.

The growth of China’s renewable energy capacity protected it from the economic fallout from the energy crisis triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, according to analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) published on Thursday.

As oil and gas stopped flowing through the key fossil fuel trade route, leading prices to soar, China’s crude oil imports – the largest in the world – fell sharply, leading the country to start drawing down on its reserves and curbing its exports of petroleum products.

“Yet, the import reduction did not produce the economic and social disruption in China one might normally expect from a shock of this scale,” the report found.   

As temporary adjustment cushioned the oil-import shock, clean power and the electrification of the transport sector buffered the economic costs.

The rise of renewable energy and nuclear power have reduced China’s fossil fuel imports bill by more than $9 billion since 2020, more than any other country, according to CREA.

“China remains exposed to imported fuels, particularly where oil is used as a chemical feedstock, but reducing fossil-fuel demand already contributes to energy security,” said Qi Qin, the report’s author.

The view from Beijing: vindicated

CREA’s analysis found the roll-out of electric vehicles (EVs) displaced 38 million tonnes of oil equivalent between March and August, equivalent to around 13% of China’s crude oil imports in the same period the previous year.

China’s ongoing reliance on coal-fired power plants also protected the country against oil and gas supply disruptions, although coal power generation remained broadly flat in the six months since the start of the Iran war, according to the report.

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Li Shuo, director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told Climate home News that China’s all-of-the-above approach to energy development has provided the country with the strategic flexibility to face the oil shock.

“While China has often been criticised in previous years for moving too slowly away from coal, this year’s global energy market volatility has given Chinese policymakers a renewed sense of confidence. There is a growing sentiment in Beijing that recent events have vindicated China’s energy strategy as both prudent and pragmatic,” he said.

Can China support the electrification pledge?

Despite its vast cleantech build-out and rapid electrification boosting its energy resilience, China has stopped short of endorsing an initiative by COP31 host Türkiye to increase the global share of electricity to 35% in final energy use by 2035.

Li Gao, vice minister at the Ministry of ​Ecology and Environment, who will lead the Chinese delegation at COP31, told a press conference the electrification target was in line with Chinese policy. “We believe that increasing electrification levels will help promote a green and low-carbon energy transition and address climate change,” he said.

China’s position on the electrification initiative is one of the major questions hanging over the COP31 talks beginning in Antalya next week.

“What is clear is that China has the most to gain from accelerated electrification because of their manufacturing capabilities,” said Bruce Douglas, CEO of the Global Renewables Alliance.

In 2026 alone, China’s exports of solar panels, batteries, EV and other cleantech are on track to avoid emissions equivalent to Brazil’s annual emissions.

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Türkiye’s proposal doesn’t include a commitment to produce the power from clean energy, nor does it explicitly link electrification to the transition away from fossil fuels – issues on which the EU has signalled it is ready to push back.  

But Chinese analysts say Beijing is unlikely to support linking a global electrification goal to commitments on phasing out fossil fuels.

Former French climate envoy Laurence Tubiana, the outgoing CEO of the European Climate Foundation, told Climate Home News that the EU and developed countries such as Brazil – which is influential within the BRICS group of large emerging economies – have a responsibility to push China to show leadership in the talks.

Driving the world’s electrification

The electrification of the Chinese economy has outpaced that of any other major economy.

In the US and the EU, the share of electrification has stagnated just above 20%. In China, it has doubled since 2005, reaching close to 30% in 2025.  

The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects China will remain the single largest driver of global electricity demand growth through to 2030, as it electrifies its manufacturing sector as well as growing demand for cooling and EV charging.

Over the next five years, the IEA forecasts that China will increase its electricity consumption by as much as the total electricity consumption of the EU today.

In August, the Chinese government set a target to boost the share of electricity in its final energy consumption to 35% by 2030 – five years ahead of Türkiye’s proposed goal.

From laggard to frontrunner

Clean-power growth and electrification could meet all of China’s rising power demand, according to CREA. By 2030, this would mean renewable and nuclear energy could reach 54% of power generation – exceeding China’s target to generate half its electricity from non-fossil sources by the end of the decade.

Clean electricity already met all of China’s demand growth in 2025. “The challenge lies in sustaining such growth over several years,” said Qin.

From Beijing’s perspective, the global targets such as the electrification pledge “no longer appear particularly ambitious or threatening”, said Li, of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“China, long perceived as a climate laggard, is increasingly moving ahead of countries in the Global North. A global ceiling target is increasingly only a floor for China,” he emphasised.

The post Clean power shields China from oil shock more than any other country appeared first on Climate Home News.

International funding to help developing countries protect their communities, infrastructure and economies from climate impacts remains far below what is needed, a new United Nations report has found, leaving vulnerable nations increasingly exposed as global warming heads past 1.5C.

The UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) 2026 Adaptation Gap Report estimates that developing countries will need about $305 billion a year to adapt by 2035 in today’s prices, or around $420 billion once inflation is taken into account. Yet international public adaptation finance from developed countries reached only $28.2-31.7 billion in 2024, a modest increase on the previous year.

The estimate is slightly below last year’s $310-365 billion, mainly because UNEP now relies more on countries’ own assessment of costs reported through their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and national adaptation plans (NAPs).

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UN secretary-general António Guterres said the gap in adaptation finance is not measured in money alone but in the lives, livelihoods and futures that are lost in the process. 

He called on developed countries to deliver “fast, simple, accessible support” to vulnerable countries, adding that development banks must also scale up their financing. “We know who is most at risk. We know what works. What is missing is the money and the political will. The choice is simple – invest in adaptation today or pay for catastrophe tomorrow,” he said.

At COP30 last year, countries agreed to at least triple adaptation finance for developing nations by 2035. Depending on whether that is measured from current flows or from the $40 billion that rich nations were meant to reach in 2025 under an earlier pledge, tripling would deliver $85-120 billion a year. Even if it is achieved, UNEP says, that would cover only 20-29% of developing countries’ needs in 2035.

The report warns the pledge may be less ambitious than it looks. The COP30 decision sets no baseline year, does not adjust for inflation and allows money that developing countries channel through multilateral development banks (MDBs) to count towards the target. Taking all of this into account, developed countries’ own contribution in 2035 could be as low as $45-66 billion a year in 2025 prices.

“The world is not ready to adapt to current climatic conditions, never mind what overshoot of 1.5°C will bring,” said Inger Andersen, UNEP executive director, calling on governments to intensify efforts to increase adaptation finance.

Global South countries step up

While funding from rich nations flatlines, adaptation finance flowing between developing countries is growing, though it is nowhere near enough to close the gap.

What’s on the climate calendar for November 2026?

The UNEP report estimates that developing countries contributed $9.65 billion towards international public adaptation finance in 2024, more than double the $3.81 billion recorded in 2019. That is about a quarter of all international public adaptation finance.

The report does not break the figure down by country. “These are voluntary contributions that capacitated developing countries provide via their shares in the MDBs but also through direct South-South cooperation,” said Henry Neufeldt, the report’s lead author, at a press conference on Wednesday.

Fatima Denton, the report’s co-author, said it is “comforting” to see South-South learning and cooperation because countries with similar ecosystems face similar challenges.

Loss and damage mounting

Without stronger action to cut emissions and adapt, climate-related losses and damages will keep rising, the report says, overwhelming the limited resources of the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), whose complex procedures also make support hard to access.

Last month, the fund’s board agreed to set aside $20 million for Nepal’s recovery from the devastating climate-driven flood it suffered in August. It is the first money the fund has allocated since its creation, but Nepali officials called the sum symbolic against estimated recovery costs of $4.8 billion. Nepal must now submit a proposal setting out how it will use the money.

The FRLD has yet to approve any projects from its first funding round, when it received nearly 180 submissions, requiring around $2.8 billion – an amount that dwarfed the around $350 million available to allocate.

Loss and damage fund delays first project approvals as needs dwarf resources

Mattias Söderberg, global climate lead at DanChurchAid, said the risk of loss and damage grows when adaptation falls short, as communities become more exposed to increasingly severe climate impacts.

“When we fail to invest in adaptation today, we risk paying a much higher price tomorrow. And that price is not only measured in dollars. It is measured in lives lost, homes destroyed and futures taken away,” Söderberg added.

A failure to match climate ambition

Ahead of COP31 starting on Monday in Antalya, climate campaigners are calling on rich governments to set out how to close the remaining gap and meet developing countries’ full adaptation needs.

Pooja Dave, adaptation lead at Climate Action Network International, said COP31 must agree a credible plan to deliver at least US$120 billion a year in adaptation finance well before 2035, through new and additional public, grant-based funding that reaches the communities most at risk.

“People have a right to a climate safe world and protection from climate impacts. Adaptation is not charity. It is a legal and moral obligation,” Dave said.

Mohamed Adow, director of Kenya-based climate change think tank Power Shift Africa, said COP31 must establish a clear starting point, milestones and a credible delivery plan, especially on how public finance, in the form of grants not loans, must reach those most at risk

“Communities facing floods and droughts cannot wait until 2035 to find out what this promise means,” he said.

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Alex Maitland, Nafkote Dabi and Pubudini Wickramaratne work on climate and inequality for Oxfam International.

Few places on Earth have escaped the deadly effects of climate breakdown in 2026. In the early half of the year, devastating floods swept through Ghana, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and other West African countries while August flash floods in Nepal, caused by a glacier collapse, affected over 80,000 people.

India endured a prolonged extreme heatwave in May, followed by the weakest monsoon in 20 years. Excess deaths from the European heatwaves are likely to have topped 50,000. And 2026 is on track to be one of the hottest years on record.

The effects of these disasters have not been caused nor felt equally. Disasters discriminate: the less you have, the more you stand to lose. 

While everyday people died in heatwaves, the super-rich built snow rooms in their mansions. As families fled from wildfires, the rich were evacuated by helicopter to five-star hotels. As flash floods wiped out entire villages, luxury properties stood protected by high-end private flood defence systems.

What’s even more galling is that the same people that have done the most to drive climate chaos can pay to insulate themselves from its effects and are now finding new ways to profit from disaster.

Oxfam’s latest report “Disaster Divide” sets out exactly how climate breakdown is deepening inequality and enriching a tiny few.

Unequal emissions

Billionaires and the super-rich are destroying the planet at a wildly disproportionate rate. The richest 0.1% (roughly 8 million people) emit more carbon than the poorest 3.5 billion people, almost half of humanity. 

There is perhaps no starker symbol of wasteful emissions than travel by private jet. Every two seconds, the world’s private jets pump out more carbon than someone in the poorest 50% of the world will emit in an entire year. 

But the climate impacts of the super-rich go far beyond their luxury lifestyles. How they invest their fortunes helps determine which high-carbon infrastructure gets built. 

About 70% of billionaire investments are in “high climate-impact sectors” such as oil, gas or chemicals. The economic damage linked to individual billionaires’ investments can run into billions of dollars. Mexican oligarch Carlos Slim’s investments, for example, caused $3.7 billion of environmental damage in 2024, and French fashion titan Bernard Arnault, owner of Louis Vuitton, was responsible for $1.7 billion in damage, our calculations show.

Emissions of the rich drive climate disasters 

For the first time, Oxfam combines the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)’s carbon inequality data with climate attribution models to link the emissions of the super-rich to extreme weather events. 

The richest 1% are responsible for 20% of global warming since 1990, 100 times more per person, than someone in the poorest half of humanity.

The data also shows how the rich increase the likelihood of extreme heat occurring: a person from the richest 0.1% has contributed 125 times more than the average person to extreme heat events.

Inequality is what turns extreme weather events into disaster. In more unequal countries, disasters cause higher death tolls, inflict greater damage and affect more people. 

Inequality also determines who can survive, endure and recover. A study of floods in Mumbai, India, found that lower-income households had to spend 15 times more than rich households to repair and replace damaged assets.

Billionaires escape climate consequences

Climate impacts are also deeply unequal along gender lines. A review of 130 studies found that women and girls were more affected than men and boys by climate-related health impacts in 68% of cases. Climate disasters exacerbate pre-existing gender inequality: gender-based violence increases during and after extreme weather events, with two-thirds of studies identifying increases in intimate partner or domestic violence following floods, storms or droughts.

“Coordinated backlash”: Activists say COP30 gender spat reflects wider threat

For millions of people, the consequences of climate chaos go further still: being forced to leave their homes and communities. UN Migration projects that, if the international community fails to act, as many as 1 billion people (around 10% of the world’s population) will have been displaced by 2050. The majority of those displaced will be in the Global South, but rich people are quietly joining their ranks.

Billionaires are buying islands and building fortified compounds and underground bunkers — tech billionaires are increasingly at the forefront of this trend. This is a form of climate apartheid: the super-rich use their wealth and power to escape the consequences of the crises they largely helped create.

Destroying the food system

Climate change is lowering food production and pushing food prices higher. Low-income households are more exposed to high food prices because it makes up the greatest share of their overall spending. People in low- or lower-middle-income countries spend almost three times as much of their income on food as people in high-income countries.

Some of the richest people in the world and their corporations are directly benefiting, exploiting rising food prices and uneven food production to reap large profits.

In 2024, extreme weather damaged West African cocoa harvests, resulting in prices jumping around 230% year-on-year but accruing no gains to cocoa farmers. The same year, heavy rains in Indonesia and droughts in Brazil and Vietnam contributed to a surge in coffee prices, with a 39% increase on the previous year’s average. Coffee-trading corporations, the intermediary traders of the supply chains, made huge profits as a result. 

A farmer walks on his cocoa farm in Gabeadji near San Pedro, Ivory Coast, January 31, 2023. (Photo: Reuters/Ange Aboa) A farmer walks on his cocoa farm in Gabeadji near San Pedro, Ivory Coast, January 31, 2023. (Photo: Reuters/Ange Aboa) Profiting from disaster

Corporations have long made massive amounts of money from wrecking the planet. Now, the wreckage itself is becoming a lucrative market. The global disaster recovery market is forecast to grow from $70 billion to $92 billion a year by 2029, driven in part by increasingly frequent climate-related extreme weather events.

Often, the very same people profiting from fuelling climate breakdown are also cashing in on disaster clean-ups. To investigate this trend, Oxfam created a sample of 217 corporations which profit from business activities that either drive climate disasters, build resilience before they hit, or work on repairing the damage. We coined it the “Destroy and Rebuild” Index.

The corporations in the “Destroy and Rebuild” Index made $1.8 billion on average in 2025, paying out more than $1 billion on average to their shareholders. Ten asset managers have investments in over 90% of these corporations, with BlackRock and Vanguard invested in 92% of the corporations in the index: the pair’s total investments in these companies exceed$1 trillion.

Coalition set sights on taxing luxury air travel to fund climate action

The lengths the super-rich go to exploit disasters doesn’t stop at cynical profiteering. Recovery efforts have also been used to push through the privatisation of public services and deregulation, reshaping communities in ways that benefit private interests rather than the people affected. 

After Hurricane Irma devastated Barbuda in 2017, reconstruction made way for luxury residences and a golf course on land that included natural coastlines and wetlands. This restricted access to the sea for many fisherfolk and local people. In Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria’s aftermath was used to advance the privatisation of the island’s electrical grid. Since then, the grid has suffered widespread failures, including a blackout in April 2022 that left the entire country without power.

A man stands in a home where the roof was ripped apart, in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, in St. Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, July 5, 2024. REUTERS/Maria Alejandra Cardona A man stands in a home where the roof was ripped apart, in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl, in St. Elizabeth Parish, Jamaica, July 5, 2024. REUTERS/Maria Alejandra Cardona Make rich polluters pay

Climate breakdown is the result of political choices and an economic system that protects the wealth and power of polluters while leaving others to pay the price. This is neither just nor sustainable. It must change.

Governments meeting at COP31 must commit to curb the excessive emissions of the super-rich through taxes on wealth, income and carbon-intensive luxury consumption, like private jets and mega-yachts. These measures will help generate the public climate finance urgently needed for Global South countries to adapt, recover and rebuild without being pushed deeper into debt. 

Governments must also draw a hard line against disaster capitalism, refusing to let corporations turn human suffering into shareholder value.

The post The great disaster divide: How the super-rich are profiting from global climate suffering  appeared first on Climate Home News.

Nana Antwi-Boasiako Amoah is chair of the African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change. Charles Wanguhu is director of the Enzi Ijayo Africa Initiative and Africa Futures Policy Hub.

A COP held in Africa does not automatically deliver for Africa. That matters now, with COP31 in Antalya ahead and COP32 in Addis Ababa on the horizon. What counts is not where the world gathers, or what it pledges, but whether climate finance reaches African countries on terms they can use.

Without real progress on finance and implementation at Antalya, an African-hosted COP will simply inherit the same unmet promises.

Africa accounts for about 4% of global emissions, yet carries a wildly disproportionate share of the cost, losing an estimated 2%-5% of GDP each year to climate extremes, money pulled from classrooms and clinics into disaster response.

The finance meant to help it adapt arrives in a trickle. Developing countries will need an estimated $305 billion a year for adaptation alone by 2035, according to the latest UN Adaptation Gap Report. In 2024, international public adaptation finance stood at $28 billion-$32 billion, just a $1 billion increase over the previous year. That gap is the difference between plans on paper and protection on the ground.

Predictable, grant-based funding

The problem is not only how much, but on what terms. Too much arrives as loans rather than grants, deepening a debt burden that already crowds out spending on essentials in health, education and multipliers of development like affordable and accessible energy. The cost of capital has become the real tax on African ambition. A fairer financial system is not charity. It is the precondition for delivery.

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So, Africa comes to Antalya with a collective strong proposition. This is no longer a slogan: across the continent, states are building shared positions and common pavilions, learning to bargain as a bloc. We will press for finance that is predictable and grant-based, and for adaptation finance to be at least tripled, to around $120 billion a year by 2035. Even that would fall short of what the continent actually needs.

The goal this forms part of, which was agreed at the Baku COP – $300 billion a year – is a floor, not a ceiling; the real benchmark is the $1.3 trillion from all sources sketched out in the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap. And we will ask for direct access, so resources reach the institutions and communities that must use them, and for mechanisms that track whether commitments are met.

Powering green industrialisation

Finance is not an end in itself. Pledges become results when finance builds economies, creates jobs and strengthens productive capacity – the grids, the processing and the skills that let African economies add value to what they produce rather than exporting it raw.

Here we should be honest with ourselves. Value addition is an energy story before it is a minerals story. There is little point in curbing raw exports if there is no reliable power to run the smelter. Credibility means pairing the call to process at home with a plan to power it.

Other enablers of a just transition become crucial. Trade, for instance, can be an enabler of a low-carbon transition by facilitating the exchange of low-carbon goods. However, it has increasingly become a hindrance, particularly for African countries.

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The use of unilateral trade measures has disproportionate impacts on market access and industrial capabilities, consigning African countries to the export of raw materials. The poor sequencing of these measures and lack of flexibilities, exemptions and targeted support are likely to cause harm.

At COP31, we will push for an agenda item on trade to create a specific space as an enabler of systematic discussion on the impact of trade‑related climate measures.

Communities at the table

This is where the design of co-operation matters as much as its scale. The proposed Just Transition Mechanism should be country-led and grant-based, so it adds capacity rather than debt. It should fund the things that make diversification real – reliable power (smarter grids and delivery networks), local processing, and the skills to run them – and it should put workers and affected communities at the table, not merely in the communiqué. Get that design right, and diversification builds new industries and jobs rather than leaving communities behind.

Antalya opens into a vacuum in global climate leadership. Africa can help fill it, not with grievance but with a credible voice on delivery and finance. An implementation COP must be judged by implementation.

The question is plain. Does the finance follow the ambition, and does it reach the economies and the people who need it? Africa will be watching the answer.

The post COP31 must deliver finance for Africa or there will be no implementation appeared first on Climate Home News.

At India’s ocean technology institute in Chennai, scientists have been developing a range of hi-tech mining equipment that can operate 5 or 6 kilometres underwater – from a remote-control submarine to a seabed soil tester and slurry pump. 

Their task: to ensure that India is ready if deep-sea mining takes off by building the technology and knowledge about how – and where – critical minerals can be extracted from the depths of the ocean, even as dozens of nations call for a moratorium on this activity.

After a series of successful deep-water equipment tests in recent years, government officials say big strides have been made. 

“(India) has made significant progress in building the scientific and technological foundations for deep-sea mining,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Earth Sciences, which oversees the institute, told Climate Home News. 

Deep-sea ambitions

Highlighting the country’s ambitions, it signed a second contract last year with the International Seabed Authority (ISA), the UN body that regulates the deep ocean floor, to explore polymetallic sulphides, which contain minerals such as copper and zinc – key ingredients in clean energy technologies such as wind turbines and storage batteries. 

Besides the two polymetallic sulphide contracts, it holds an ISA exploration contract for polymetallic nodules in the Central Indian Ocean Basin. China and South Korea are the only other countries with three ISA exploration contracts directly under government control. 

Greenpeace activists hold a protest demanding an end to deep-sea mining, in Prague, Czech Republic, June 1, 2023. REUTERS/David W Cerny Greenpeace activists hold a protest demanding an end to deep-sea mining, in Prague, Czech Republic, June 1, 2023. REUTERS/David W Cerny

Yet deep-sea mining is controversial for its potential impacts on the ocean floor, a little-studied, undisturbed ecosystem that should be protected by a precautionary pause on the activity, marine scientists say. 

A coalition of 46 countries is pushing for a moratorium on deep-sea mining, until enough scientific evidence shows the ecosystem impacts can be reduced. 

Despite this push, ISA contract-holders are still racing to develop the technical capabilities to mine the ocean floor, betting that commercial-scale operations will eventually be permitted and prove economically viable. India, an emerging clean-tech powerhouse, does not want to fall behind competitors, government officials told Climate Home News. 

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Since India obtained its first ISA exploration contract more than two decades ago, extensive survey work has been undertaken in the 75,000-square-km contract area in the Central Indian Ocean Basin, which is estimated to hold hundreds of millions of tonnes of polymetallic nodule resources, according to the Indian government. 

More recently, survey work has identified several potential locations in the polymetallic sulphide areas. 

The seabed survey work and the deep-sea mining tools being developed in Chennai put India among only a small group of countries to have made such progress. China is another leader in mapping the ocean floor for potential mineral resources that could one day be extracted.  

At a meeting in Jamaica in July, the ISA continued negotiations on rules for commercial deep-sea mining but failed to adopt the Mining Code. Delegates agreed that further work had to be carried out to resolve outstanding issues, with the ISA tasked with devising a roadmap towards hopeful adoption.

A view shows an active venting chimney at the Jan Mayen Vent Fields on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge and a lot of white microbial mats cover the chimney, at a depth of around 500 metres, in this undated handout picture. University of Bergen, Centre for Deep Sea Research/Handout via REUTERS A view shows an active venting chimney at the Jan Mayen Vent Fields on the Arctic Mid-Oceanic Ridge and a lot of white microbial mats cover the chimney, at a depth of around 500 metres, in this undated handout picture. University of Bergen, Centre for Deep Sea Research/Handout via REUTERS Technical and regulatory hurdles

Even if a regulatory framework is established, commercial development remains a distant prospect in the exploration contract areas awarded to India by the ISA, government officials and experts say. 

“There is still quite a distance to be covered to convert the resource to reserves,” the ministry spokesperson said. 

Pradeep Singh, an ocean governance expert at the Oceano Azul Foundation, a Portugal-based international nonprofit, described India’s deep-sea mining programme as being firmly in “an exploratory phase”. 

“There is still a lot more work left to be done in order to achieve sustained extraction technology, address operational hurdles (such as shipboard processing and trans-shipment), and develop onshore refining,” Singh told Climate Home News. 

“It would also appear, from publicly available information, that none of the programmes will be ready to move into the exploitation phase anytime soon,” Singh added. 

Deep-sea real estate

Instead, the government’s longer-term vision for India’s ISA contracts is centred on “a combination of mineral/resource security, indigenous technology development, scientific capability and eventual industrial readiness”, the ministry spokesperson said. 

London talks raise hopes for green shipping deal

But for as long as deep-sea mining remains commercially unviable, Singh said securing exploratory licences may be more about “real estate and as a projection of dominance”.  

“The competition at the moment – if any – is more about investing in deep-sea operational capabilities rather than mineral resource extraction itself (which is currently not competitive),” Singh said.

Threat to ocean biodiversity

In tandem with India’s deep-sea mineral survey work, years of research by government environmental scientist Dr. Rengaiyan Periasamy on Indian Ocean ridges highlight the risks that future deep-sea mining poses to ocean biodiversity.

“Our studies have led to the discovery of more than 10 new species,” Periasamy told Climate Home News from the Kochi-based Centre for Marine Living Resources & Ecology, which also operates under the Ministry of Earth Sciences. 

They warn that deep-sea mining could cause habitat destruction, persistent sediment plumes and disruption of ecosystem processes throughout the water column, with potentially irreversible impacts occurring before many species and ecosystems are fully understood. 

Iridogorgia and bamboo coral pictured around the Johnston Atoll Unit of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (Photo: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research) Iridogorgia and bamboo coral pictured around the Johnston Atoll Unit of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (Photo: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research)

Major fisheries could also be severely impacted, according to campaigners. 

“No country has conducted enough scientific research to capture the full scope of environmental impacts of deep-sea mining,” said a spokesperson for the Deep-Sea Conservation Coalition, an international environmental advocacy group focused on protecting deep-ocean ecosystems. 

“We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about any deep-sea environment,” the spokesperson added. 

The post India builds deep-sea capacity in bet on critical minerals future appeared first on Climate Home News.

Brazil’s COP30 presidency has unveiled a much-anticipated plan to halt forest loss around the world, saying a global target to end deforestation by 2030 remains within reach using existing national and international tools, but requires more finance behind it and everyone to go “faster and further”.

COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago told a press conference to launch the new roadmap in Brasilia that, while some countries pushed back against a global blueprint, it was developed as a way to inspire governments, business and civil society to focus on meeting commitments to protect forests.

“It’s all processes that already exist. All instruments that already exist. That’s one of the best conclusions: everyone can start acting today,” do Lago said.

The voluntary deforestation roadmap, along with another on transitioning away from fossil fuels, was promised by Brazil in the final hours of last year’s COP30 in the Amazon city of Belém after countries could not agree to include it in the formal Mutirão outcome.

Do Lago reiterated on Tuesday that the roadmap is not an official UN document, but rather a guide to implement targets already agreed three years ago at COP28 in Dubai, when countries took stock of national climate policies and agreed to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030.

Last year, global deforestation declined by 15% – the largest drop in recent years, achieved in large part thanks to Brazil’s tougher enforcement against illegal expansion of cattle-ranching – but countries remain far off track for the drop needed to achieve the COP28 target.

Former Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva, a close ally of newly re-elected President Lula da Silva and one of the main advocates of the roadmap, celebrated its launch and described it as “not a new path but a new way of walking” towards the global goal.

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What’s included in the roadmap?

The roadmap compiles a menu of policies to reverse deforestation and restore the world’s forests at both the national and international level, informed by more than 180 contributions from governments, civil society, the private sector and others. It focuses on ways countries can ramp up forest conservation, sustainable management and restoration, while tackling deforestation and forest degradation.

At the country level, it urges each government to follow a four-point plan, starting with identifying the drivers of deforestation in its territory, adjusting existing policies such as climate and biodiversity plans to address those drivers, setting targets according to available resources, and then implementing measures to reach them.

At the international level, it urges countries to co-operate on diverting trade-related incentives away from forest-destructive activities, and to strengthen prosecution of cross-border environmental crimes at the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC). It also calls for collaboration on forest monitoring platforms and developing unified indicators for tracking progress.

The document also identifies the next UN Global Stocktake of climate policies in 2028 as a key milestone when countries will have a last chance to review forest policies before the end of the decade.

Do Lago said some countries might want the roadmap to become a contribution to the next stocktake, adding that this document is “the first contribution for that discussion”, which will start at COP31 in Antalya and continue until COP33.

COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago looks over documents at the UN mid-year climate talks in Bonn, Germany on June 11, 2026 (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth) Finance boost needed

To achieve the 2030 global target, the roadmap also says a major scale-up of financial resources will be required. The UN estimates that $84.5 billion was channelled into forest protection in 2023, which will need to increase to more than $300 billion a year by 2030. Nearly 90% of finance going to forests comes from domestic government budgets in developing countries, rather than international aid or private-sector investment.

The roadmap suggests that, since countries are already paying to look after their forests, they can act in two main ways: diverting domestic support away from nature-damaging activities, and building demand for “verified forest outcomes” such as paying to keep forests standing or creating forest-positive subsidies.

In the case of international finance, the document identifies several initiatives seeking to channel new public and private funds towards forest protection, including paying for carbon sinks – known as REDD+ in technical jargon – as well as through the newly established Paris Agreement carbon market.

The roadmap also singles out recent efforts to shift more private finance into solutions for nature, such as the Brazil-led Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) launched last year in Belém.

“The great challenge is not new policies, but scalability and acceleration to arrive at 2030 as promised, having ramped up efforts to end deforestation and forest degradation,” COP30 CEO and veteran climate diplomat Ana Toni said at the press conference.

Timeline requires quick implementation

Damian Fleming, senior director for forests at green group WWF International, said the roadmap “gets many of the fundamentals right” including on governance, regulatory and legal enforcement, community rights, finance, and the need to tackle degradation as well as deforestation.

However, he added that “the challenge now is speed” with 2030 just a few years away. “Countries need to use [the roadmap] to turbocharge action for results on the ground,” he said, urging governments to pursue deforestation-free supply chains and respect the rights of Indigenous peoples.

Anders Haug Larsen, director of international advocacy at the Rainforest Foundation Norway, highlighted the wide range of partners that can drive the anti-deforestation plan forward, adding he hoped that rainforest nations would now step up to champion it.

“Tropical forests are too important for fragmented approaches,” he said. “The roadmap can help bring together governments, Indigenous Peoples, investors and existing initiatives behind a common goal: ending deforestation and keeping forests standing.”

Natalie Unterstell, founder of the Talanoa Institute, a Brazilian climate think-tank, said the roadmap builds on Brazil’s “successful experience” of reducing deforestation, which has dropped to a record-low level, going beyond a simple focus on law enforcement but also identifying business and finance opportunities that bring positive results.

“The next step is for other governments and incoming COP presidencies to take ownership of this agenda, turn the proposed pathways into co-ordinated action, and use the 2028 Global Stocktake to assess collective progress. With only four years left, the roadmap needs a coalition of countries committed to delivering it,” she told Climate Home News.

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Brazil has proposed a voluntary timetable to speed up the world’s transition away from fossil fuels (TAFF), fulfilling the promise it made to draw up the first global roadmap at last year’s UN climate summit in Belém. 

Through a “TAFF Mutirão”, named after the Indigenous Brazilian term for collective effort, the COP30 presidency sets out three stages for cutting the world’s reliance on oil, gas and coal up to 2033.

Countries are first encouraged to draw up national transition plans by 2028 in time to feed into the next global stocktake, the UN’s five-yearly review of progress on climate action. During the same period, Brazil’s blueprint suggests governments could take early steps such as reforming fossil fuel subsidies or stopping methane leaks at oil and gas sites.

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In 2029 and 2030, Brazil sees the focus shifting to building an alternative energy system, by prioritising clean power, electric transport and heating, more efficient energy use and by rolling out the power grids and batteries that support them.

Only in the final stage, from 2031 to 2033, does the roadmap expect the main push to reduce fossil fuel production. By then, it argues, falling use of fossil fuels should allow producers to “adjust and diversify supply in step with demand”.

The roadmap acknowledges that fossil fuel demand must fall “substantially faster” to meet the 1.5C temperature goal, but warns that cutting supply too early would drive up prices and risk “losing societal support for the transition”.

Coordinated agenda

Pedro Brancante, a senior official at the Brazilian Foreign Ministry and one of the authors of the roadmap, said the document proposes both a global, coordinated agenda and accelerated action at the national level.

He told a webinar hosted by Climate Home News that Brazil sees the roadmap as a tool to organise the discussions around the fossil fuel phase-out and help that debate develop further without getting stuck on definitions or the different responsibilities of particular countries.

The COP30 presidency offered to draw up the roadmap in the dying hours of the Belém summit. A push by about 80 countries to start that work within the formal negotiations had been blocked by some fossil fuel-producing nations.

The 182-page document does not name any countries and it sets no deadlines for winding down fossil fuel production. But it offers countries a self-assessment tool to score themselves on how heavily they depend on fossil fuels and what capacity they have to move away from them.

Fossil fuel “archetypes”

Across energy demand, supply and the wider economy, countries can place themselves in one of 12 “archetypes”, each with its own suggested first steps.

For example, countries where transport, industry and homes still run mostly on fossil fuels, and where energy demand is growing fast, are urged to meet that growth with electric and other low-emissions options rather than locking in new fossil fuel use. Major oil and gas producers with strong institutions and good renewable resources are told to manage an “orderly transition” of their production while expanding clean energy, then to redirect their infrastructure and skills toward new energy industries.

COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago told journalists on Tuesday that countries need to recognise themselves in the categories and use the frameworks as “food for thought” to plan the next steps.

COP30 CEO Ana Toni added that the presidency limited its time horizon to 2033 and did not try to think about 2050 or 2060 because “there is an urgency and these are short-term measures” that all countries can act upon now.

Lula’s election win in Brazil raises hopes for zero deforestation drive

Brazil has yet to publish its own national roadmap away from fossil fuels. At the end of last year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asked his government to draft the roadmap’s guidelines by February 2026, but officials said on Tuesday that the document is still awaiting approval from the President.

Lula, who was recently re-elected, has backed the expansion of oil and gas exploration. In August, after Petrobras struck oil off the coast near the mouth of the Amazon River, he said drilling along Brazil’s northern coast could be “a passport to the country’s future”.

“Valuable blueprint”

The release of the roadmap was largely welcomed by analysts and campaigners. 

Romain Ioualalen, global policy lead at Oil Change International, said Brazil has offered “a valuable blueprint” for the fossil fuel phase-out, adding that while “there is not one-size-fits-all pathway”, all countries need to plan their transition now.

 But he warned that suggesting that a reduction in fossil fuel supply could wait until the 2030s would be “a grave mistake” and guarantee a “chaotic transition”. 

Smoke rises from Yatagan thermal power plant near southwestern town of Yatagan in Mugla province, Turkey, February 24, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas) Smoke rises from Yatagan thermal power plant near southwestern town of Yatagan in Mugla province, Turkey, February 24, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas)

Kat Paterson, programme lead for global clean power diplomacy at E3G, said the roadmap puts the fossil fuel transition at the heart of both global climate cooperation and national economic planning. 

“As governments head to Antalya, the task is now for the COP31 presidency to carry Brazil’s work forward, and for countries to demonstrate their own plans to develop national roadmaps as pathways towards clean, resilient economies,” she added. 

Turkey, which hosts COP31 from next Monday, and Australia, which will preside over the negotiations, have not said whether or how they will take the roadmap forward at the summit.

At the press conference in Brasilia, the Brazilian officials stressed that the roadmap represents a call for action and not a formal document that needs to be adopted in the official talks.

“We are not suggesting negotiations, we are not suggesting the creation of a new entity,” said Corrêa do Lago. “Everything is around implementation, around institutions and processes in place that already exist and have been agreed beforehand.”

The post Brazil’s fossil fuel roadmap sketches out first global timetable appeared first on Climate Home News.

After repeated delays, the Africa Energy Bank (AEB) was officially launched this week – tasked with financing oil and gas projects across the continent as global lenders retreat from such investments due to climate concerns.

Even as the world aims to transition away from fossil fuels, many African leaders have made clear they want to continue exploring and extracting the continent’s large oil and gas deposits – estimated at about 125 billion barrels of crude and more than 600 trillion cubic feet of gas – to fund economic development.

“The creation of the Africa Energy Bank reaffirms African governments’ determination to secure their own energy future,” said a statement announcing the institution’s launch at a meeting in Abuja, adding that the bank’s founders believed oil and gas remained vital to the continent’s energy systems.

The delays to the bank’s launch had raised questions about its momentum and whether it could mobilise investment to finance major African hydrocarbons initiatives in an era of energy transition.

The initial plan for the energy bank – a joint initiative of the African Petroleum Producers’ Organization (APPO) and the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) – was to start operations in January 2025, but the bank’s opening was repeatedly pushed back.

Quest for investment

The bank said it had authorised capital of $5 billion but did not disclose how much of that had been subscribed or paid in by shareholders. It vowed to focus on projects that would help strengthen productive capacity, reduce reliance on imported fuels and promote trade in energy goods across the continent.

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It estimates Africa’s energy investment needs at $200 billion, and energy analysts told Climate Home News the institution could struggle to mobilise enough resources to advance large-scale projects.

However, its backers said at the weekend launch that the bank would seek investment from governments, national oil companies, financial institutions and private investors across the continent to ensure that “Africa’s energy future is shaped by Africans”.

African-led approach to energy financing

Backers said the bank was needed because many traditional international lenders have curtailed financing for oil and gas projects, potentially hindering a more extended and gradual energy transition advocated by many African leaders as a way to ensure economic and social development.

Chantal Naidoo, executive director at Rabia – a South Africa-based just transition think-tank – said the creation of a bank to invest in fossil fuel projects reflected the complexities of switching to clean energy for African countries – noting the high cost of financing for clean energy projects.

Africa wants adaptation finance on COP31 agenda, raising risk of a fight

At the same time, Naidoo said, the continent is expected to transition within a global system in which the rules are not applied equally – citing recent support for continued oil and gas development by the British and Norwegian governments. 

“A binary choice between fossil fuels and renewables does little to address these complexities,” Naidoo said.

“Momentum lies with renewables”

But many climate campaigners say the bank should prioritise renewable energy investment as Africa builds out much of its energy system for the first time, fueling growth in solar power.

Data from energy think-tank Ember, published in August, projects that the continent will install a record 17 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in 2026 – equal to about 100,000 solar panels every day. This would mark the third consecutive year of record growth, following increases of 51% in 2025 and 25% in 2024.

African governments strengthen waste rules as solar and battery use surges

Joseph Ibrahim, Nigeria campaign director for Secure Energy Project, a global advocacy organisation working to accelerate the energy transition, said Africa receives only about 2% of global clean energy spending, leaving plenty of scope for more.

“A new African energy bank should build on that momentum, not pull scarce public money away from it,” Ibrahim said.

The post Africa launches long-delayed energy bank to finance fossil fuel projects appeared first on Climate Home News.