UN climate talks open in Turkey with fossil fuel transition as key issue

US, largest historic carbon polluter, skipped COP30 and isn’t expected in Antalya

The 31st Conference of Parties, or COP31, opens Monday in Antalya, Turkey, starting with speeches from world leaders before negotiators dig into how to follow through on past climate pledges. The key issue this year is implementing promises to transition away from fossil fuels. Negotiators also will hash out how to provide promised funds to poorer countries to switch to renewables, adapt to a warmer world and recover from climate-induced damage.

Many scientists believe global warming is accelerating. The world is at 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming and hurtling toward 2.6 degrees Celsius (4.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the United Nations found. Two months ago, the U.N. readjusted its decade-old goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) because the world is passing that threshold.

Eleven years ago, the world was on track for 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming above preindustrial levels by the end of the century. In 2015, nations set the goal of keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), with a preferred limit of 1.5 degrees. The fallout from rising temperatures is already being felt around the world, with Europe’s deadly summer heat waves and Nepal’s devastating flooding as examples.

“We have failed so far,” said Johan Rockström, director of Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Rockström said Earth will likely experience more frequent and extreme weather such as floods, droughts and storms, and that the planet may soon reach “tipping points,” such as ocean currents changing and the Amazon rainforest collapsing.

The United States, the world’s largest historic carbon polluter, skipped last year’s conference in Brazil and is not expected to participate this year. “There’s always two topics in the climate negotiations that are relevant and difficult,” said Niklas Höhne, co-founder of Germany’s NewClimate Institute. “The first one is who produces emissions (and) how much. That is difficult enough. But what is even more complicated is the other issue, and that is who pays. And on this one, we are particularly in a difficult situation because the U.S., as the largest contributor, has dropped out. And there’s no other player who can jump in.”

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered a European energy shock, and this year the United States and Israel bombed Iran. The conflict closed the Strait of Hormuz and sent fossil fuel prices skyrocketing, forcing nations to rethink their energy systems. Mohamed Adow, a veteran COP observer and director of Power Shift Africa, said the conference is taking place at a time when the world is deeply fragmented. “The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has intensified economic and energy security pressures,” he said.

“We don’t expect this particular conference to be able to sufficiently respond to the present day challenge … that is affecting livelihoods and economies,” Adow said.

Meanwhile, the world is running its energy transition on two tracks at once. For more than a century, coal, oil and gas have powered the globe, spurring economic development along with the emissions warming the planet. Renewable energy is capturing attention because it is cheaper and cleaner than fossil fuels, but instead of switching from one to the other, the world is using both to meet demand from power-hungry artificial intelligence and ever-growing economic development. That isn’t helping curb climate change.

Even though burning fossil fuels is the main cause of warming, the issue has rarely been targeted in final documents agreed upon at the climate conferences, mostly because those decisions require consensus. This April, 56 countries met at a separate conference to push for a more direct phaseout of fossil fuels. “The reason we are seeing the breach of 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming is because we avoided the absolutely fundamental question of how climate change happened and what’s responsible, the source of the problem and that’s fossil fuels,” said Harjeet Singh, founding director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation. “Unless and until we resolve the issue of fossil fuel phase out, we will not be able to deal with the problem.”

Brazil, which hosted COP30 last year, this month released a detailed voluntary road map laying out how countries could transition away from fossil fuels. Ana Toni, who served as CEO of last year’s climate talks, said the road map is meant to turn the “big problem” of reducing fossil fuel use into “smaller actionable solutions,” and said one key step nations must take is stopping fossil fuel subsidies — subsidies the U.N. estimates hit $1.1 trillion globally this year. Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, said, “What’s standing in the way is not so much technology as governments and incumbent industries.” “One cannot underestimate the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry in slowing down action,” he said.

Co-host Turkey is pushing a separate plan that would help shift more global energy use — including transportation — to electricity generated from solar and wind power. One important sideline initiative this year is Turkey’s goal of increasing electricity’s share of global energy use from 21% to 35% by 2035, preferably using renewable power. Much of the work at climate negotiations gets done on such sidelines, where not everyone has to agree and some nations do more than others.

What gives most experts hope is how cheap solar and wind energy are, along with the growth in electric cars, strengthening the economic argument for transitioning away from fossil fuels. “It has never been as easy to reduce emissions than it is today because, again, this year, renewable energy has been developing faster than before,” Höhne said. “It’s really the moment that we place a magnifying lens on what’s happening in the world on climate change, both good and bad,” said David Waskow, international climate chief at the World Resources Institute.

Youth activists described growing frustration. Ashley Lashley, a Barbados youth activist whose first climate conference was five years ago, said she still attends the negotiations with some hope but is more frustrated than ever. “The science has become more alarming, but yet politically we seem to be negotiating how much failure we are prepared to tolerate,” she said. Qiyun Woo, a Singaporean youth environmentalist, said her generation is tired of “seeing their present and futures blanketed in wildfire smoke, in devastating floods (and) landslides.”

Adow said the talks are hindered by the continued absence of the United States, adding that it wasn’t fair to nations like Nepal, which have to face catastrophic destruction alone while the world’s wealthiest country and biggest polluter sits on the fence. “A time will come when we will have to hold the U.S. accountable for the climate harms that it’s caused,” he said.