COP31 Opens in Antalya: Climate Summit Leaders Urge the World to 'Move Faster'

The world's climate negotiators are back in session, and their hosts are not pretending the pace is adequate. Leaders of the COP31 climate summit urged the world to accelerate the fight against global warming as the annual meeting began in Turkey on Monday, Reuters reported, at the start of a two-week UN conference held even as war, inflation and the demands of artificial intelligence compete for governments' attention. Simon Stiell, the UN's climate chief, said in prepared remarks for the opening on Turkey's Mediterranean coast that the urgency of this moment must drive the world forward, and that progress so far was nowhere near fast enough.

The numbers behind that warning are already published. A report by the United Nations Environment Programme published in October said the world was already set to overshoot 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial times — the threshold set at the 2015 Paris summit to avoid the worst consequences of warming — and this year is on track to be one of the four hottest on record, driven by a powerful El Niño. Around 60,000 people and several dozen leaders are expected in Antalya over the two weeks, in an unusual arrangement: Turkey officially presides as host, while Australia leads the negotiations.

Turkey's presidency has put one measurable goal at the center of the summit: electrify more than a third of the global economy by 2035, up from around a fifth today, with nations asked to sign a pledge supporting the target. Turkey's COP31 President Murat Kurum said in prepared remarks that people should feel the results of climate talks in daily life — in buildings that use less energy, clean public transport, energy they can afford and new jobs. Climate advocates have criticised the pledge because it does not require the additional electricity to come from low-carbon sources, setting up an early fight over whether electrification alone counts as climate progress. The United States is not at the table: the Trump administration is shunning the climate talks for the second year running. Australia's Chris Bowen, who presides over the negotiations, said he hoped the conference would show the world that multilateralism works — that Paris is working, but the world must move faster. What Antalya actually produces will be measured over the next two weeks, and this desk will report outcomes when they exist, not before.