Cop31 will expose the conflicts and contradictions of the world’s fossil fuel reliance

Holding a climate conference under the presidency of one coal-obsessed country might be regarded as a misfortune for the planet – sharing it between two starts to look provocative. But at this year’s Cop31 UN climate summit in Antalya, coal exporter Australia and coal consumer Turkey will be trying to shift the focus away from dirty fossil fuels and towards clean electricity, with a target on the table to meet 35% of final energy demand from electricity by 2035. Will they succeed? The geopolitical outlook for Cop31 is worse than for almost any recent “conference of the parties” under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Conflicts in Ukraine, Iran and Gaza are destabilising global alliances, an unpredictable White House is sowing economic uncertainty and AI is threatening to unleash digitised chaos. But with an El Niño weather system supercharged by fossil fuels already wreaking havoc and yet to peak, the climate is showing where the real potential for earthbound catastrophe lies. For the next fortnight, Down to Earth will bring you twice-weekly updates from the Cop31 negotiations plus, when the gavel finally comes down, a final assessment of what progress has been made – and where negotiations have fallen short in Antalya. But first, this week’s most important reads. Essential reads ‘Bunch of baloney’: calls grow for Cop summit reforms as countries on track to fail nature targets The Amazon’s canary in the coalmine: what a tropical fish can tell us about climate upheaval The next global pandemic could be brewing on a mink farm in Utah – and little is being done to stop it In focus That Cop31 is happening in Antalya, but presided over by Australia, is the product of a last-minute compromise struck last year at Cop30 in Belém. Australia had wanted to hold a Cop since 2021, when Anthony Albanese made it one of his key promises ahead of the climate-inflected general election he won the next year. Turkey has also wanted to hold a Cop for some time, and claimed to have agreed with the UK, hosts of the Glasgow Cop26 conference in 2021, that 2026 would be its year. For complicated reasons dating back to 1992, when the UNFCCC was signed, Australia and Turkey fall in the same group as western Europe when it comes to being allowed to bid for the presidency, which rotates annually between five regional groups. There is no mechanism within the treaty for resolving situations where two countries cannot agree on their bid, and no provision for a majority vote to decide among competing options. Despite this inauspicious start, the two countries seem to have worked well together in the run-up. Australia will chair the negotiations, taking charge of issues such as the “just transition” to help workers in fossil fuels adjust to a low-carbon economy, the loss and damage fund (which has come into renewed focus after the catastrophic glacier collapse in Nepal), other forms of climate finance and progress on emissions cuts. Turkey will take charge of the “action agenda”, which is a programme of voluntary commitments that runs alongside the formal negotiations. This year, the quest to electrify the global economy will be the central plank, with initiatives on cutting waste and methane – two topics beloved of Turkey’s first lady, Emine Erdoğan – also on the list. Cop31 is also the first major international meeting after several momentous elections: the US midterms, which delivered a pummelling to Donald Trump and the Republicans, and Brazil’s presidential poll, won by the president, Lula da Silva. The latter was regarded as a relief for the Amazon, which Lula’s opponent, Flávio Bolsonaro, was likely to have opened up to further rampant exploitation. And it is the last such outing for another familiar figure – António Guterres, who has used his two terms as secretary-general of the UN to speak out on the climate as none other. Expect a fiery farewell. With some items of good news to celebrate, the outlook for Cop31 is not all bleak. But delegates would do well to read the latest UN reports on what it will take to minimise the now inevitable overshoot of the 1.5C threshold. Preventing temperatures rising beyond 1.8C will require massive and urgent cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, while global carbon emissions have yet to peak. Phasing out fossil fuels has never been so urgent. Inevitably, the fossil fuel predilections of both hosts will come under scrutiny. Australia could start to shift its reliance on fossil fuel exports in favour of clean electricity, Australia’s Cop31 president of negotiations, Chris Bowen, told the Guardian when we caught up with him at the mid-year climate talks in Bonn in June. But he refused to put any kind of end date on coal. Coal remains Turkey’s biggest source of power, despite a push for renewable energy, and the country’s national climate plan allows for an increase in its greenhouse gas emissions, rather than a cut. A group of 50 frontline organisations from Turkey, Australia and other coal regions around the world wrote to the Cop presidents this week to call for an end to coal mining and use. Mehmet Dalkanat from the Afşin-Elbistan Platform for the Protection of Life and Nature in Turkey said: “People in Afşin-Elbistan have lived with coal for 40 years and have already paid a heavy price in pollution and the impacts of coal.” He points towards the cancellation of plans to expand the country’s largest coal-fired power plant in July. “[This was] a major victory for local communities who have been fighting for years, and a powerful source of hope for a coal-free future,” he said. “The Cop31 presidencies must build on this local victory to accelerate the phaseout of coal and deliver a just transition.” Though freedom of expression is curtailed in Turkey – as it has been in three of the previous four Cop host countries – expect more such protests in Antalya. We’ll be following developments throughout the summit, with our daily liveblog bringing you news, analysis – and a look behind the scenes of one of the most vital meetings on the planet. Read more: • Cop31 host urges wealthy countries to spend ‘much more’ on climate than defence • Brazil publishes first global ‘roadmap’ for phasing out fossil fuels • Overseas, Albanese sees ‘the very definition of climate injustice’ – but at home, he still wants coal • To read the complete version of this newsletter – subscribe to receive Down to Earth in your inbox every Thursday.