UN

Nations grapple with loss of 1.5C target at UN climate summit

BY JULIEN MIVIELLE

  • One senior delegate from a western nation warned of a "potential backsliding" in climate action should those efforts succeed at COP31.
  • For a decade, the 1.5C goal has served as the north star of climate action, a line nations pledged to hold to avoid the worst ravages of a warming planet. 
  • One senior delegate from a western nation warned of a "potential backsliding" in climate action should those efforts succeed at COP31.
For a decade, the 1.5C goal has served as the north star of climate action, a line nations pledged to hold to avoid the worst ravages of a warming planet. 
But at this year's global climate conference -- the first since the United Nations said the 1.5C threshold would be missed -- nations appear unsure how to take the news.
The world has already warmed about 1.4C above pre-industrial times and the UN declared in September that crossing 1.5C -- the most ambitious target threshold of the Paris accord -- was imminent and unavoidable.
Yet in Turkey, where the COP31 negotiations are at the midway point, some nations are clinging to the goal, particularly those on the frontlines of the climate crisis.
Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr, whose Pacific island nation is threatened by rising seas, said 1.5C was not "an abstract target".
"It is an existential threat to our food, our economies and sovereignty," he told world leaders in Antalya.
Some countries want a final deal at COP31 to affirm that 1.5C remains the "right goal", according to a summary of negotiating positions released by Australia, which is chairing the talks.
There's also a push for language about returning to 1.5C "as soon as possible" and that global temperatures are "still able" to be lowered once exceeding the threshold.
In private, some negotiators are sceptical but reluctant to abandon a target seen as essential to driving the fastest possible cuts in planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions. 

Backwards step

Others are spying an opportunity to jettison 1.5C, several observers of the ongoing closed-door climate negotiations told AFP.
This includes the Arab Group and Like-Minded Developing Countries, these sources said -- two negotiating blocs of emerging economies including Saudi Arabia and India. 
One senior delegate from a western nation warned of a "potential backsliding" in climate action should those efforts succeed at COP31.
Jasper Inventor, head of Greenpeace's delegation in Antalya, said some developing nations worried "a stronger reference" to 1.5C could mean greater pressure to cut emissions without extra financial help.
Among the wish-list of negotiating priorities released on Thursday, some nations also urged a rejection of "grey literature" -- an oblique reference seen as a possible swipe at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
In September, UNEP published a first-of-its-kind study into "overshoot" scenarios, exploring how the world might possibly bring global temperatures back down to 1.5C by 2100 once the threshold is breached.  
At COP31, outgoing UN chief Antonio Guterres -- who spent his decade in office rallying nations behind 1.5C -- said any overshoot must be "as small as possible for as short a time as possible". 

'Extremely ambitious'

Under the Paris agreement, nearly 200 nations agreed to keep warming "well below" 2C while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C. 
But as scientific evidence mounted in the years after the accord, the lower threshold took on ever greater urgency.
Beyond 1.5C, scientists say, the risks of global warming rise sharply -- from more severe floods and heatwaves to irreversible changes to the planet like the permanent loss of coral reefs.
But the idea that warming can be reversed to 1.5C is uncertain, said Pierre Friedlingstein, a climate scientist from the University of Exeter and lead author of the benchmark Global Carbon Budget study.
To get there, emissions must fall rapidly while carbon is removed from the atmosphere through natural means -- such as planting trees and restoring wetlands -- or emerging technologies.
"A massive roll-out of these new technologies" would be required at enormous scale over decades, Friedlingstein told AFP.
"It is not something I would call utopian but it is certainly extremely ambitious," he said.
jmi/np/jxb/ceg

climate

Taiwan Indigenous farmer revives climate-resilient millet

BY JOY CHIANG

  • Once grown by Indigenous farmers in Taiwan in case their staple crops died, oil millet largely disappeared from fields more than 60 years ago as rice became more available.
  • Indigenous farmer Banu Ismahasan walks through a golden field of tall stalks in southeastern Taiwan, harvesting by hand the grain heads of an ancient crop resistant to extreme weather.
  • Once grown by Indigenous farmers in Taiwan in case their staple crops died, oil millet largely disappeared from fields more than 60 years ago as rice became more available.
Indigenous farmer Banu Ismahasan walks through a golden field of tall stalks in southeastern Taiwan, harvesting by hand the grain heads of an ancient crop resistant to extreme weather.
Once grown by Indigenous farmers in Taiwan in case their staple crops died, oil millet largely disappeared from fields more than 60 years ago as rice became more available.
Over the past decade, Ismahasan and his elderly parents have worked to revive the nearly forgotten crop in the Bunun community in Buklavu, a village surrounded by lush green mountains in Taitung county.
"We just hope to bring back many traditional Bunun crops and grow them on this land again," Ismahasan, 48, told AFP in his oil millet field under a clear blue sky.
Oil millet, or "dill" in the Bunun language, is endemic to Taiwan and can be found growing wild in the mountains. 
Ismahasan first read about the plant online and then embarked on his own research, combing through historical documents and speaking to tribal elders, including a woman who recalled last eating it half a century ago.
He discovered that Bunun farmers used to grow oil millet alongside their staple crop foxtail millet as a "back-up" when harvests failed or disasters hit.   
After years of growing oil millet himself, Ismahasan came to understand why his ancestors relied on the crop.
A single oil millet seed can grow 15 to 20 panicles, or branching seed clusters, and the stems regenerate on their own, while foxtail millet typically grows one panicle per seed and must be sown again after being cut.
It has also proven hardier than foxtail millet when extreme weather or disease outbreaks have ravaged his 2.2-hectare (5.4-acre) farm.
During a drought several years ago that lasted more than 200 days, the oil millet "stayed bright green" while other crops withered, Ismahasan said. 
Typhoons, floods and even a rust disease outbreak have not affected it either. 
Hsing Yue-ie, a retired professor from Taiwan's Academia Sinica and an expert in plant genetics, first heard of oil millet 15 years ago at an international forum. 
Unbeknownst to Hsing, specimens of Taiwan oil millet collected in the 1890s were sitting in Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 
Hsing led a research team to find oil millet in the mountains of southeastern Taiwan and began studying the little-known cereal.
She found that the seed's protective wax coating enabled it to grow without irrigation, fertilisers or pesticides, even on poor-quality land. 
Rich in oil, protein and minerals, it can be used for human and animal consumption, as well as for fuel.
"It's naturally very efficient at using sunlight and water," said Hsing.
"As for soil conditions, even in mountainous areas where the ground is full of large rocks, it can still grow very well."
 

'Very precious'

 
Ismahasan started his crop with one panicle of oil millet. The family now harvests oil millet twice a year on a section of their property where they grow other traditional Bunun cereal crops. 
Tiny and tasteless, oil millet can be used in porridge, steamed buns, bread and even popcorn. 
But the family has struggled to convince other farmers to grow it because it is not yet commercially viable.
Oil millet is not only labour intensive but also significantly more expensive for consumers than rice, by far Taiwan's most popular staple.
While the current market for oil millet is limited, Taiwan's National Crop Germplasm Centersees value in preserving its seeds for the future, when climate change might force more farmers to consider growing the crop. 
Oil millet seeds are "very precious" because of their genetic diversity and ability to adapt to the environment, Lin Yen-yu, an assistant researcher at the centre, told AFP. 
Seeds are kept in aluminium foil packets and stored at -18C under low-moisture conditions where they can last for decades, Lin said. 
"In the future, when cultivation methods or climate change undergo certain shifts, their value may start to be recognised and discovered," he said.
"It preserves many possibilities."
Ismahasan said his priority for now was to get more people in his community growing and eating oil millet, bringing "it back into our everyday lives, just as it was for our elders". 
"If we don't even eat it ourselves anymore, how can we expect to turn it into a viable business?" he said.
joy/amj/sah/lga/abs

UN

Thousands rally against COP31 as climate talks hit midpoint

BY BURCIN GERCEK

  • In downtown Antalya, under rainy skies, thousands of protesters dressed in costumes and shouting slogans marched under close police supervision in the largest demonstration since COP31 began on Monday.  
  • Thousands of protesters took to the streets Saturday in the Turkish city hosting COP31 to accuse the climate summit of failing those bearing the brunt of environmental destruction. 
  • In downtown Antalya, under rainy skies, thousands of protesters dressed in costumes and shouting slogans marched under close police supervision in the largest demonstration since COP31 began on Monday.  
Thousands of protesters took to the streets Saturday in the Turkish city hosting COP31 to accuse the climate summit of failing those bearing the brunt of environmental destruction. 
The show of dissent comes as negotiators approach the crunch final week of global climate talks in Antalya, with nearly 200 nations scrambling to strike a deal by Friday.
The summit is not expected to produce a major breakthrough, frustrating activists demanding tougher curbs on planet-warming fossil fuels and fresh pledges to help poorer countries adapt to climate impacts.
In downtown Antalya, under rainy skies, thousands of protesters dressed in costumes and shouting slogans marched under close police supervision in the largest demonstration since COP31 began on Monday.  
"We are suffering the consequences of climate injustice, yet our voices are never heard at the COP," said Halime Saman from the People's Climate Summit platform, one of the groups behind the rally.
"Turkey is the co-chair of COP31 but still has no roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels. New power stations and coal mines are being opened," she told AFP.
Yasar Gokoglu, a 78-year-old demonstrator, travelled nearly 600 kilometres (350 miles) from Adana in southern Turkey to denounce what he called "a masquerade sponsored by monopolies".
Police estimated that more than 7,000 people attended the protest, which was organised by environmental groups, trade unions and rights organisations, and proceeded without any major incident.
Civil society activists had raised safety concerns ahead of COP31 after Turkey embarked on a major crackdown on the Muslim-majority country's LGBT community in September.
Some LGBT protesters waving rainbow flags participated in the march.
Demonstrators were only allowed to join the rally after being searched by police.
 

'No quick fix'

 
Much smaller demonstrations inside the COP31 venue this week, including one attended by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, have been mounting pressure on political leaders to act faster on the climate crisis.
The negotiations hit the halfway point Saturday but countries remain far apart on contentious issues including financing adaptation measures in developing nations, defending climate science, and shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy.
Australia's climate minister, Chris Bowen, who is chairing the formal negotiations, said there had been "really good and positive conversations" but some issues required more time.
Outside the negotiations, Turkey is urging countries to join a voluntary pledge to raise the share of global final energy demand met by electricity.
The summit, which closes on November 20, takes place against a difficult backdrop, with a conflict-driven energy crisis and geopolitical tensions tempering expectations. 
"There's no climate quick fix. No single COP can magic this crisis away, but each must drive progress," UN climate chief Simon Stiell told reporters on Saturday.
bg-bur/np/rmb

UN

UN official urges Iran, US to let fertilisers through Hormuz Strait

BY ÁLVARO VILLALOBOS

  • While Iran and the United States are still trying to negotiate an end to the conflict, Moreira da Silva said he had the same message for both countries.
  • Iran and the United States should "immediately" allow fertiliser shipments through the Strait of Hormuz to ease the crisis in some of the most vulnerable countries, a senior UN official said Saturday.
  • While Iran and the United States are still trying to negotiate an end to the conflict, Moreira da Silva said he had the same message for both countries.
Iran and the United States should "immediately" allow fertiliser shipments through the Strait of Hormuz to ease the crisis in some of the most vulnerable countries, a senior UN official said Saturday.
Jorge Moreira da Silva, head of the UN Office for Project Services, told the COP31 climate talks in the Turkish resort city of Antalya that the lack of fertilisers could push millions into poverty.
The Iranian blockade of the vital waterway, which started after the joint US-Israeli attack against Iran in late February, has choked shipping in the region and beyond. The US blockade of Iranian ports has further complicated matters.
While Iran and the United States are still trying to negotiate an end to the conflict, Moreira da Silva said he had the same message for both countries.
"They should continue their negotiations about the comprehensive deal -- but that deal should not avoid an immediate, exceptional, limited, and time-bound solution for the fertilisers," he said. 
"Basically what we need is five vessels a day with fertilisers," he added.
 

Millions at risk

 
Moreira da Silva heads up the UN task force dedicated to facilitating the safe passage of fertilisers during the crisis.
Before the conflict, a third of the world's fertilisers passed through the Strait of Hormuz, and since the blockades, their prices had risen by 30 percent, he said.
"But what I think is not sufficiently recognized is the disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable countries," he added.
Sudan's finance minister recently told him that the price of food there had doubled in six months, he added. In Nepal, they had told him that farmers could no longer afford to buy fertilisers.
"So it's very important that we are aware that countries such as Mozambique, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka are facing very significant impact."
The effects of this shortage could be catastrophic, he warned.
"If we continue missing the planting seasons in different parts of the world we may have 45 million people facing severe and acute food insecurity," he said.
"We may have 30 million people being forced into poverty."
The UN had a system ready to get fertiliser shipments moving within seven to 10 days, he said.
avl/jj/rlp

UN

Triumphant Democrats descend on COP31 snubbed by Trump

BY LAURENT THOMET

  • The election has been a topic of discussion at COP31 in Antalya, with hopes that Democrats can restore some clean energy policies and that a pro-climate president can be elected in two years.
  • Fresh from their US midterm election triumph, an emboldened group of Democratic lawmakers descended on the COP31 climate talks shunned by President Donald Trump on Saturday to signal their commitment to tackling global warming.
  • The election has been a topic of discussion at COP31 in Antalya, with hopes that Democrats can restore some clean energy policies and that a pro-climate president can be elected in two years.
Fresh from their US midterm election triumph, an emboldened group of Democratic lawmakers descended on the COP31 climate talks shunned by President Donald Trump on Saturday to signal their commitment to tackling global warming.
The 18-strong delegation joined the annual UN conference in Turkey after their party regained control of both chambers of Congress in a landslide victory last week cheered by climate campaigners.
"Many of our allies and partners across the world think the United States has not been predictable or dependable. So we have a lot of trust to earn back," Florida Representative Kathy Castor told AFP.
"We have so much work to do. And yes, I hope the United States gets back on track with urgent climate action," she said after the group took photos in front of a large COP31 sign in a sprawling expo centre.
The election has been a topic of discussion at COP31 in Antalya, with hopes that Democrats can restore some clean energy policies and that a pro-climate president can be elected in two years.
"What happened in the US is remarkable, and a much needed shift that we all needed, not only from a climate perspective, but overall," Harjeet Singh, strategic advisor to the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, told AFP.
Since taking office in January 2025, Trump has rolled back some of the clean energy policies of his predecessors, promoted oil drilling, pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement and kept his country out of the UN's climate negotiations.
"It is absolutely shameful that the Trump administration operates this way, that this is an administration that is filled with climate deniers, that is beholden to big oil in the United States," Yassamin Ansari, an Arizona lawmaker, told AFP.
 

'Climate action alive in America'

 
Ansari and other members of the delegation spoke at a panel focused on the midterm elections, attracting a crowd that overflowed outside the "America Is All In" pavilion.
The group reminded COP31 delegates that, while Trump has rejected clean energy, US states and local governments have continued to promote renewables and other pro-climate policies.
A group of US mayors and governors visited COP31 earlier this week, along with former US vice president Al Gore and former US climate envoy and secretary of state John Kerry.
"Despite the setbacks that we're experiencing through this Trump administration, climate action is alive in America," California Congressman Raul Ruiz told the panel. 
The president's Republican party was handed a resounding defeat last week in large part due to anger over soaring energy prices and Trump's costly war with Iran.
Democrats have vowed to use their majority in the House and the Senate to launch investigations into the administration's climate policies and propose clean energy legislation.
But Trump still has two years left in office and has vowed to wield his veto power.
"At a time where Americans from all political backgrounds want to see their energy bills reduced, this administration will be very hard pressed to veto legislation that will bring down costs for the American people," Ansari said.
lt/np/cw

climate

Alaska laments decline of its prized salmon populations

BY ROMAIN FONSEGRIVES

  • Polling has indicated the majority of Alaskans are angry enough they'd like to see trawling banned.
  • In his Alaskan community, fisherman Bob Candopoulos has long welcomed tourists to his business that's showcased by a sign featuring a king salmon.
  • Polling has indicated the majority of Alaskans are angry enough they'd like to see trawling banned.
In his Alaskan community, fisherman Bob Candopoulos has long welcomed tourists to his business that's showcased by a sign featuring a king salmon.
But this local fish emblematic of the region is growing increasingly rare.
"Ten years ago, we could go out every single day" and hit catch limits, the sports fisherman and charter boat operator told AFP. "Now sometimes we're lucky if we even find any salmon when we're out there fishing."
"It's terrible," Candopoulos said with a sigh, standing on the docks of the small port of Seward, a municipality surrounded by snow-capped mountains along the shores of the North Pacific.
Like many residents of this vast, frigid state, the 64-year-old blames massive trawlers that scour the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea for impacting the king salmon runs.
Industrial vessels target pollock, which is used in products like breaded fish sticks and imitation crab products worldwide.
Their nets are as wide as four commercial airliners, and routinely scoop up thousands of tons of fish other than pollock each year.
This bycatch includes salmon, which then die in the ocean instead of returning to spawn in their native rivers.
The waste is particularly difficult to bear because salmon fishing has been severely restricted -- and even outright banned -- for years among the Indigenous communities along the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers.
"Our rivers are running dry of fish, but the trawl industry isn't regulated to stop killing them," says Candopoulos.
 

'Preyed on by a billion-dollar industry'

 
Most of the trawlers are based in Seattle, Washington state -- and roughly two-thirds of the economic output generated by the pollock fishing industry ends up outside Alaska.
"Alaska is definitely being preyed on by a billion-dollar industry," fumes Candopoulos.
This inequity fuels distrust in a region that's long witnessed the arrival of opportunists eager to exploit its rich resources, including beaver pelts, gold and oil.
Polling has indicated the majority of Alaskans are angry enough they'd like to see trawling banned.
In Seward, fishermen are not necessarily calling for that extreme.
"I'm not necessarily on the 'kill all trawlers' wagon," Chance Miller, 42, told AFP.
The sports fisherman noted that Alaska has a significant fleet of local trawlers, some of which operate on behalf of coastal Indigenous communities.
He also voiced concern over the economic implications.
"Towns are built around processors," Miller said.
"If those guys weren't bringing fish in, those processors might not be able to afford to stay open."
 

Climate change impacts

 
The thorny issue even found its way into Alaska's recent Senate election.
But science points to another culprit: climate change.
Research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows the decline in Chinook (king) salmon primarily stems from marine heatwaves in the Bering Sea, which renders the waters uninhabitable for the fish's prey.
Brett Watson, a natural resource economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, said a trawling ban would have "unclear" impacts on salmon runs.
"Climate change has been identified as probably a larger contributor to the declines of salmon runs in on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers," he told AFP.
"That's a much more difficult issue to deal with."
In a state where residents receive an annual dividend from oil production, commercial fisherman Ian Raab laments that politicians squabble over trawlers while failing to mention the impacts of climate change.
"One would think Americans would talk more about it," he said. "I would love if we did, if we were more concerned about it."
Raab pivoted from salmon years ago, and instead prioritizes catching halibut and sablefish.
At 58, he is concerned about the Trump administration's dramatic budget cuts to NOAA.
He said the agency's marine weather forecasts have grown less reliable, and he fears reduced research will undermine policies for managing fish stocks.
"We should let them do their job," Raab said, "so I can do mine."
rfo/mdo/msp

climate

California steels for storms that could trigger massive waves, flooding

  • Storm systems as well as high tides have triggered flooding in recent months in California, causing dramatic property destruction and leaving communities along the coasts feeling particularly vulnerable.
  • California was bracing Friday for a storm series packing heavy rain and surf that could once again flood coastal communities and potentially see monster waves pound shores.
  • Storm systems as well as high tides have triggered flooding in recent months in California, causing dramatic property destruction and leaving communities along the coasts feeling particularly vulnerable.
California was bracing Friday for a storm series packing heavy rain and surf that could once again flood coastal communities and potentially see monster waves pound shores.
Off the coast of San Francisco, Southern Monterey Bay and Big Sur Coast, forecasters warned that up to 30-foot (9 meter) breaking waves could arrive Friday evening, with occasional monstrous sets of 40 to 50 feet possible.
Such violent waves in the Pacific are a trademark of the El Nino weather pattern, which this year has driven disruptions around the globe as it turbocharges the impacts of human-caused climate change. 
"Large breaking waves will run up beaches and crash over seawalls, inundating adjacent, low-lying infrastructure," read the last National Weather Service advisory.
The US weather agency urged against entering the water and said to stay off waterside infrastructure including jetties, piers and rocks.
"NEVER turn your back on the ocean," NWS meteorologists wrote.
Further south near Los Angeles forecasters said widespread rainfall would begin Friday and continue into Saturday, and elevated surf could fuel dangerous rip currents and breaking waves.
The greatest impact of the surf was expected to see peaks on Saturday and potentially again Monday, the NWS said.
"There is potential for moderate coastal flooding impacts at times, especially Saturday," read the latest advisory from the weather agency.
"Some of these impacts may be moderate to significant beach erosion and shallow flooding of normal dry beaches and walkways."
Storm systems as well as high tides have triggered flooding in recent months in California, causing dramatic property destruction and leaving communities along the coasts feeling particularly vulnerable.
Forecasters anticipate giant storms off the coast will continue to whip up large waves as the El Nino phenomenon is expected to strengthen into the winter.
El Nino raises surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean and causes global changes in winds and rainfall, and this year's edition has proven particularly extreme.
Human-caused climate change can worsen El Nino's impacts. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, making rains more intense.
Sea levels off California will likely soon bump even higher due to especially high tides known as king tides, which generally occur in the late fall and winter months.
mdo/hg/msp

UN

Climate could force more than 200 mn from homes: UN migration chief

BY BURCIN GERCEK

  • "And, of course, the tension is that we know that countries are spending billions of dollars on border security."
  • Climate change could force more than 200 million people from their homes even as countries spend billions on securing their borders, the head of the UN's migration body said Friday.
  • "And, of course, the tension is that we know that countries are spending billions of dollars on border security."
Climate change could force more than 200 million people from their homes even as countries spend billions on securing their borders, the head of the UN's migration body said Friday.
Amy Pope, director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), made the warning in an interview with AFP at the United Nations climate conference in the Turkish resort of Antalya.
"Over 200 million people are currently living in extremely climate-vulnerable communities who are at risk of displacement," she said.
"If we don't act now, we anticipate that those movements will increase significantly."
In 2025, storms, drought, forest fires, extreme temperatures or flooding forced nearly 30 million people to flee their homes, according to IOM data.
"What we don't see, though, is the kind of policy or investment that's needed to address those drivers of migration," said Pope.
"And, of course, the tension is that we know that countries are spending billions of dollars on border security."
Some of the very countries that stayed away from the climate conference were the same expressing concern about migration, said Pope. Yet the two issues were connected, she said.
"It is critical that governments not put these different issues into silos," she argued.

'Cost-effective' measures not funded

"We often are asked to help support governments as they address irregular migration when it happens," she said.
"We know how expensive that can be, we know how many lives can be lost."
What would make more sense, she argued, would be to help communities threatened by climate change to find ways of mitigating its effects.
That was "a much more humane but also cost-effective way of responding to those challenges", she said.
"We're talking about adaptation measures that are estimated to cost about $310 billion or so," she added.
And yet, so far, there had been about $30 billion in funding, and that was "nowhere close to what it needs to be".
Pope regretted the absence of so many heads of state from the COP31 talks.
"We encourage all states to be engaged, to be driving solutions, to ensure that they have a comprehensive approach," she said.
"We would love to see them all at the table."
bg/jj/jhb/sbk/ach 

UN

Fight over climate science intensifies at COP31

BY NICK PERRY AND JULIEN MIVIELLE

  • "There are some parties that are trying to undermine what science is telling us because they don't want to do what it takes to address climate change," Acconcia said.
  • The European Union vowed Friday to "fight" for science at the UN climate summit after accusing some countries of seeking to undermine the world's leading authority on global warming.
  • "There are some parties that are trying to undermine what science is telling us because they don't want to do what it takes to address climate change," Acconcia said.
The European Union vowed Friday to "fight" for science at the UN climate summit after accusing some countries of seeking to undermine the world's leading authority on global warming.
A long-running dispute over when to publish the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) next major reports is spilling into the COP31 talks in Turkey, threatening to complicate negotiations toward a final deal.
Dozens of countries in Europe, Africa and the Pacific want the next set of IPCC reports available to inform a crucial stocktake of global carbon-cutting efforts at the 2028 climate summit.
But a smaller number of countries, including Saudi Arabia, China and India, are pushing for the IPCC's "seventh assessment report" to be delayed until 2029.
The IPCC suspended its last meeting after failing to break the impasse and hopes for a resolution at its next session in December.
But there is growing pressure to address the standoff in Turkey by inserting the issue in the final COP31 decision, elevating tensions as the climate negotiations approach the midway point.
"We will fight for this outcome to be there," senior EU climate official Diana Acconcia told reporters, cautioning it would "not be so easy" to bridge the gulf on the issue.
"There are some parties that are trying to undermine what science is telling us because they don't want to do what it takes to address climate change," Acconcia said.
"It is as simple as that," she added, lamenting the "polarised" nature of the debate.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday praised the "remarkable" work of the IPCC and said he hoped for its next report to be published "ideally before the next stocktake".
 

Drive decisions

 
The IPCC publishes a series of reports every seven years that provide the definitive scientific assessment of climate change and inform global policy responses to the crisis.
Pierre Friedlingstein, a climate scientist from the University of Exeter and author of previous IPCC assessments, said it was "always best for policy decisions to be based on the most up-to-date science".
"Updated figures are more appropriate than figures that are seven years old," he told AFP in Antalya.
"Presenting new evidence can help drive political decisions forward. That said, it is clear that this does not suit certain countries. They would prefer to stay where we were before."
Some countries fear updated findings could expose the gap between climate action and what is needed to limit warming at the 2028 global stocktake, several negotiators in Antalya told AFP.
"It's no secret that IPCC faces operational challenges and reputational risks from the current impasse on the timeline," IPCC chairman Jim Skea said in a speech on the first day of COP31.
Skea urged delegates to "use your influence here to prepare for a successful outcome" at the December meeting, reminding them that IPCC scientists volunteer their time to draft the reports.
Observers are not optimistic of resolving the dispute at COP31, where decisions must be taken by consensus among the nearly 200 nations that participate.
But there is a push to recognise the "central role" of IPCC science in any final COP31 deal. 
Those arguing for a delay say more time is needed for developing countries in particular to digest the thousands of pages of technical scientific findings.
But the Alliance of Small Island States and the Least Developed Countries group -- two blocs representing more than 70 developing nations -- have already expressed support for publishing the report in 2028.
"We would like to have it as soon as possible, and as detailed as possible," Abou Bamba, environment minister of Ivory Coast, told AFP.
np-jmi/lt/st

oil

Campaigners hail landmark Norway ruling against oil licences

  • The Supreme Court noted that the oil companies were not parties in the case and said the fact the approvals had been declared invalid did not automatically mean the licences ceased to apply.
  • Norway's Supreme Court on Friday ruled that three oil licences granted by the government in the North Sea were invalid since their emissions impact had not adequately been accounted for.
  • The Supreme Court noted that the oil companies were not parties in the case and said the fact the approvals had been declared invalid did not automatically mean the licences ceased to apply.
Norway's Supreme Court on Friday ruled that three oil licences granted by the government in the North Sea were invalid since their emissions impact had not adequately been accounted for.
The court agreed with climate campaigners, who challenged the validity of the licences, arguing that the environmental impact assessments had not considered the greenhouse gases let out by burning the oil after it had been extracted.
"This is a historic victory for the climate and for Norwegian democracy," Haldis Tjeldflaat Helle, head of the Scandinavian country's wing of Greenpeace, told AFP shortly after the ruling was announced.
"Big polluters are now forced to admit exactly how much they will contribute to the climate crisis that we are in the middle of," she added.
Energy Minister Terje Aasland said in a statement to AFP that the "ruling is important because it clarifies the requirements for the decision-making process in cases like these", adding that his ministry will "of course, follow these requirements". 
Eleven judges took part in handing down the highly anticipated ruling instead of the usual five -- a format reserved for important cases.
The campaigners had already won victories in two lower-court rulings.
The high court ruled that the plans for extraction and expansion were "invalid due to procedural errors".
It noted in a statement that while emissions assessments were carried out, they only covered so-called production emissions and not the subsequent "combustion emissions".
According to the court, "the combustion emissions resulting from petroleum production must be subject to an impact assessment" before a plan is approved.
Greenpeace's Tjeldflaat Helle said that "this will give Norwegian public and Norwegian decision makers a much clearer, better picture of how much the Norwegian oil and gas industry is actually contributing to the climate crisis".
 

Closely watched

 
Norway has overtaken Russia as the continent's main supplier as the conflict in Ukraine led to a sharp decline in Russian gas and oil deliveries to Europe.
The ruling was closely watched beyond the borders of the Scandinavian country by the many legal experts and NGOs who have challenged production licences granted to oil companies on climate grounds.
Young Friends of the Earth Norway and the Norwegian branch of Greenpeace filed the case in 2023 against the permits for the Tyrving, Breidablikk and Yggdrasil fields.
In January 2024, a district court ruled in their favour, prompting Norway's Ministry of Energy to lodge an appeal. The ruling was then upheld by an appeals court in November 2025.
Operations were allowed to continue at the three contested North Sea fields while the energy ministry appealed the rulings.
Breidablikk and Tyrving are currently operational, while Yggdrasil -- whose potential reserves were recently revised upward -- was due to start producing in 2027.
The Supreme Court noted that the oil companies were not parties in the case and said the fact the approvals had been declared invalid did not automatically mean the licences ceased to apply.
"The ministry must, however, reassess the case on the basis of proper procedure," the court said.
In his statement, Aasland also stressed that the court had "made it very clear that this does not mean that activities at the three fields must stop", but that the decisions needed to be reassessed. 
"We need to study the ruling more closely before we can say more about how we will proceed," Aasland added.
 

'Absolutely delighted'

 
 
Climate campaigners around the world have started seeing successes by employing legal routes to challenge projects.
Australia's highest court in October blocked the expansion of a coal mine in New South Wales, saying that planning bodies had not properly looked at the local impacts of planet-heating emissions from the coal.
However, Australia's state of New South Wales has introduced laws that would allow the expansion of a massive coal mine, despite the court's ruling.
In France, a court in June ordered TotalEnergies to take into account emissions linked to all its products in its corporate vigilance plan.
The United Kingdom's top court in 2024 ruled in favour of opponents to an oil drilling project, finding that its environmental impact had not been sufficiently taken into account.
Sarah Finch, who led the UK campaign, told AFP she was "absolutely delighted" to hear about the Norwegian ruling.
"I'm so proud that our fight against one oil field in England has set off a wave of climate- and future-friendly judgments around the world," she said.
jll/sbk

UN

Gore blasts 'insane' Saudi veto power at climate talks

BY LAURENT THOMET

  • "The idea that one individual country like Saudi Arabia can block anything the entire world wants to do is literally insane.
  • Former US vice president Al Gore said it was "literally insane" that oil-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia could block global action against climate change, calling for sweeping reforms to UN negotiations.
  • "The idea that one individual country like Saudi Arabia can block anything the entire world wants to do is literally insane.
Former US vice president Al Gore said it was "literally insane" that oil-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia could block global action against climate change, calling for sweeping reforms to UN negotiations.
Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of the COP31 summit in Antalya, Turkey, Gore said UN climate talks needed to replace the consensus-based decision-making system with a supermajority model.
Saudi Arabia and other fossil fuel-producing countries, including Russia and India, have been among the nations accused of using their de facto veto power to impede tougher language on oil, gas and coal in UN climate negotiations.
"There's growing support for moving away from a so-called consensus model," Gore said Thursday in Antalya.
"The idea that one individual country like Saudi Arabia can block anything the entire world wants to do is literally insane. We are facing the most serious threat to the future of humanity that we have ever faced," the climate advocate said.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate also accused Saudi Arabia of trying to "sabotage" the work of the UN's climate science panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The Saudi government did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
 

Emboldened by Trump

 
Nearly 200 nations agreed for the first time to transition away from fossil fuels -- the main driver of climate change -- at the COP28 conference in Dubai in 2023, in a hard-fought compromise after fierce resistance from major oil producers.
But the United States, once a major force in COP negotiations, has skipped the UN climate talks and pulled out of the Paris Agreement since US President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025 with a promise to drill for oil.
"The change in the approach that Donald Trump has taken does embolden the large polluters around the world," Gore said.
The COP30 summit in Brazil last year ended without any explicit mention of fossil fuels in the final agreement -- and Saudi Arabia, Russia and India were named by some as the culprits.
Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodriguez defended their countries' right to develop their oil industries in their COP31 speeches.
While the fossil fuel transition has not been mentioned in COP decisions since Dubai, "it hasn't been removed either," Gore said.
"It is a firm part of the set of agreements that every nation in the world has signed on to. So, this will continue and I'm hopeful there will be a growing recognition that the climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis," he said.
COP31 host Turkey is championing a voluntary pledge to boost the electrification of transport, buildings and industry.
Critics say the initiative leaves open the possibility of using fossil fuels as a source to power electricity grids.
Gore welcomed the Turkish initiative but said it should be "coupled with an insistence that clean energy be used as much as possible in reaching that goal".
Gore's Climate TRACE initiative, which uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to track greenhouse gas emissions, presented new analysis at COP31 showing how implementing the electrification target alongside cleaner power grids could double emissions reductions.
 

US absence: 'mixed blessing'

 
Despite the US government's absence at COP31 and rollback of US climate policies, Gore expressed optimism that the political tide would turn after Democrats dealt Trump's Republican Party a major defeat in last week's midterm elections.
Although Trump will remain in office for another two years, Gore said the Republican president would face "a lot of pressure" to go along with the new Congress if it restores popular measures such as tax credits for electric vehicles.
But Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat and the only US senator attending COP31, said his party will have to be strategic to overcome any Trump veto threat.
"We'll have to be prudent about what the strategy is and what to bring back," Whitehouse told reporters.
A congressional delegation of Democrats is due to attend COP31 this weekend, although Gore played down its likely influence in negotiations in the absence of an official US government presence.
"I do believe that it's a mixed blessing that some of the individuals in the Trump administration are not here able to interfere personally in the negotiations," Gore said.
"But it's bad enough that they have tried to block climate action at every single turn."
lt/sbk

UN

Act now against El Nino or costs will double, UNDP warns

BY ÁLVARO VILLALOBOS

  • El Nino is a climactic phenomenon that comes every two to seven years, heating the waters of the Pacific Ocean from springtime.
  • Acting now to counter the devastating effects of the El Nino phenomenon will cost half as much as waiting, the head of the UN Development Programme told AFP Friday.
  • El Nino is a climactic phenomenon that comes every two to seven years, heating the waters of the Pacific Ocean from springtime.
Acting now to counter the devastating effects of the El Nino phenomenon will cost half as much as waiting, the head of the UN Development Programme told AFP Friday.
Alexander De Croo spoke to AFP at the UN climate conference in the Turkish resort of Antalya. One of the most contentious questions being debated here is how to fund action to meet that challenge.
"The needs to hedge the impact of El Nino are $36 billion if you do it now," said De Croo.
"If you don't do it, the cost will be $73 billion. So the cost would be two times as high," he added.
"And that's the choice, right? Do we want to anticipate and help people or are we going to wait and live with the consequences?"
El Nino is a climactic phenomenon that comes every two to seven years, heating the waters of the Pacific Ocean from springtime. That causes major changes in wind patterns and air pressure and rainfall across the world in the subsequent months.
This latest El Nino cycle has been exceptionally strong, disrupting weather around the globe.
How to fund action to meet the challenges raised is one of the most contentious questions at the COP31 climate talks.
"Not acting is the most expensive climate policy that you could have," warned De Croo.
He called on delegations and major players such as the International Monetary Fund to rise to the challenge by financing efforts by developing countries most vulnerable to El Nino's effects to mitigate its effects.
That kind of investment would save lives, protect crops and infrastructure and actually save money in the long term, he argued.
 

Complex equation

 
Developing countries want more financial support for this kind of work from richer nations because of their historic responsibility for global warming.
That is no easy ask, given the state of public finances in many wealthy countries, which are struggling with their debt burden and the costs of various wars, De Croo acknowledged.
But it was nevertheless a good investment, he argued: "Tackling climate insecurity also helps in other types of insecurity."
It is a complex equation, he argued, "especially for developing countries. Since Covid, they've never had time to recover".
After the Covid pandemic came the economic upheaval unleashed by the war in Ukraine and after that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, "and now El Nino, and now the cost of financing".
And the cost of each compounded on top of the other, he added. The aim, then, is to work with developing countries to try to soften the financial blow.
That is part of the UNDP's ongoing work, to try to get money to the developing countries worst hit by El Nino.
These same countries regularly denounce the reluctance of public and private funders to help them without burying them in debt.
"The cost of capital sometimes is high, because there is a high level of uncertainty," De Croo acknowledged.
"So to curb that, you do policy reforms, you make sure that there is a legal framework which is stable... I mean, investment is not coming to places where there is no trust.
"So increasing the trust is something we do, I mean we work today with 47 countries in that domain."
A report published this week by the UNDP noted calculations by the African Development Bank of just how costly the current El Nino cycle could be.
It put the damage at $10 billion to $20 billion in African countries.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean estimated that El Nino could cause cumulative GDP losses of at least two percent over three years.
That, they said, would push an additional 4.8 million people into poverty.
It is not too late, De Croo stressed. "We can still do it.
"We need to shift much more towards adaptation investments."
And however much that costs, the price of doing nothing will be "much, much higher".
avl/jj/jhb

fires

El Nino mostly to blame for Indonesian wildfires: research

  • "Indonesia's landscapes have changed dramatically over the last 30 years, with extensive peatland drainage and deforestation creating landscapes that can be extremely vulnerable to ignition," said meteorologist Pramudhian Firdaus of the FLARE Wildfire Research group.
  • Wildfires that consumed vast swathes of Indonesia this year were driven largely by a strong El Nino, fuelled by climate change and decades of natural landscape destruction, researchers said Friday.
  • "Indonesia's landscapes have changed dramatically over the last 30 years, with extensive peatland drainage and deforestation creating landscapes that can be extremely vulnerable to ignition," said meteorologist Pramudhian Firdaus of the FLARE Wildfire Research group.
Wildfires that consumed vast swathes of Indonesia this year were driven largely by a strong El Nino, fuelled by climate change and decades of natural landscape destruction, researchers said Friday.
El Nino was largely to blame for an extreme lack of rainfall in the Southeast Asian archipelago from July to October, reducing seasonal rainfall by about half, according to a report by scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group.
Climate change contributed by driving up temperatures.
"Seasonal temperatures from August to October were dominated by climate change -- primarily from the burning of fossil fuels -- which made the seasonal heat about 1.6°C hotter," said the report.
"Human-induced warming made these (fire-prone) atmospheric conditions about three times more likely as well as more intense."
The researchers also pointed to deforestation and peatland drainage for agriculture, mining and logging as major contributors to the fire disaster.
Smoke from the wildfires made hundreds of thousands ill in Indonesia from breathing in toxic haze and exposed many more in neighbouring countries to dangerously high air pollution levels.
"Indonesia's landscapes have changed dramatically over the last 30 years, with extensive peatland drainage and deforestation creating landscapes that can be extremely vulnerable to ignition," said meteorologist Pramudhian Firdaus of the FLARE Wildfire Research group.
"These findings show how both emissions reductions and sustained forest and peatland protection are important in reducing future risk."
Wildfires have burned through 2.88 million hectares (7.1 million acres) so far in 2026, according to the Nusantara Atlas deforestation monitor.
The burned area figure -- 18 times the size of London --  increased nearly a million hectares in a month.
The Indonesian government has not confirmed or rejected the figure nor released its own estimate of area burnt since July.
Indonesia experiences fires every dry season, but this year's blazes have been particularly severe.
mlr/abs

UN

COP31: UN chief, US mayors and Lula crowds

BY LAURENT THOMET, NICK PERRY AND BURCIN GERCEK

  •   - Lula limelight -   Lula, who narrowly won re-election last month, got a warm welcome from a cheering crowd at a civil society event.
  • From the UN chief slamming fossil fuels to American mayors showing up in place of the US administration and cheering crowds for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, AFP takes a look at what's happening Thursday at the COP31 summit.
  •   - Lula limelight -   Lula, who narrowly won re-election last month, got a warm welcome from a cheering crowd at a civil society event.
From the UN chief slamming fossil fuels to American mayors showing up in place of the US administration and cheering crowds for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, AFP takes a look at what's happening Thursday at the COP31 summit.
The UN's annual climate conference, which started on Monday, runs until November 20 in the Turkish Mediterranean resort city of Antalya.
 

'Absurd' oil profits

 
In an exclusive interview with AFP, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres slammed soaring fossil fuel profits as "morally unacceptable".
Guterres said it was "absurd" that nine oil majors would reap $95 billion in profits in a single quarter while ordinary people struggled to afford heating and fuel amid an energy crisis fuelled by the Iran war.
"Governments need to protect the interests of their peoples -- not the interests of a group of companies," he said at his final climate summit after a decade at the helm of the United Nations.
 

US absent but present

 
President Donald Trump, who pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, is unsurprisingly absent from the talks and sent no representative.
But former secretary of state and climate envoy John Kerry, former vice president Al Gore, and several governors and mayors made the trip to Antalya.
"Our message at COP is clear: mayors are closest to the people we serve, and when Washington steps back, we step up," said Vicki Veenker, mayor of Palo Alto, California.
The Americans snubbing the talks are "not any fun anyway", joked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat whose party triumphed in last week's US midterm elections.
 

Lula limelight

 
Lula, who narrowly won re-election last month, got a warm welcome from a cheering crowd at a civil society event.
Environmentalists praise the veteran leftist, 81, for slashing deforestation in the Amazon and creating an Indigenous peoples ministry.
Lula "has always shown he cares about the environment" and is "a symbol of the struggle and the fight against climate change", said Mexican student Sebastian Hernandez.
The Brazilian leader, who survived throat cancer in 2011, opted not to give two scheduled speeches Wednesday because of his throat.
In a hoarse voice, he spoke at the end of Thursday's event on his first-ever COP, in 2009.
"I was stunned to see that people didn't take protecting the environment seriously," he said.
"The word impossible doesn't exist in my life," he added to applause.
 

Disruption

 
The conference has been plagued by transport problems, with events having to be cancelled due to delayed arrivals and missing delegates.
"You can imagine people sitting on buses for five hours is just unimaginable. It's had a huge impact on the work inside, especially when delegates are supposed to be in meetings, in negotiations," Tasneem Essop, executive director of the Climate Action Network civil society alliance, told AFP.
 

Climate security

 
Britain already has a climate minister, Katie White, but Prime Minister Andy Burnham told fellow world leaders that he had appointed a special envoy focused on climate security.
"Climate is a national security issue," said Burnham.
"As evidence of that," the prime minister said, he had appointed Madeleine Alessandri, the former head of the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee -- the body that briefs ministers on security threats -- to the post.
While countries often have climate envoys whose roles include climate security, Britain is the first to establish a separate job focused on the issue, said Cosima Cassel, an expert at climate think-tank E3G.
 

Blowing past 1.5C

 
COP31 was given a fresh warning that global temperatures were likely to blow past the world's target of limiting global warming to 1.5C above preindustrial levels.
The planet is heading towards an "irrecoverable overshoot" of 1.5C unless governments rapidly cut emissions and abandon their support for the fossil fuel industry, according to Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific monitoring group.
Nations agreed at the 2015 UN climate talks in Paris to keep global warming "well below" 2C above pre-industrial levels, while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5C to avert the worst impacts of global warming.
 

Thunberg back

 
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who had not attended a UN climate summit in years, warned that the climate crisis was "already a matter of life and death".
"The planet is not dying, it is being killed," the Swedish activist told reporters, a day after calling the annual gathering a "greenwashed circus".
Few major breakthroughs are expected at COP31 as countries face an energy crisis and geopolitical tensions in the wake of wars in Iran and Ukraine.
bur-jhb-lt/jj

UN

Fossil fuel mega-profits 'morally unacceptable', Guterres tells AFP

BY NICK PERRY

  • Guterres said it was "absurd" and "morally unacceptable" that nine fossil fuel majors would reap $95 billion in profits in a single quarter from the price hikes while ordinary people struggled to afford heating and fuel.
  • UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday slammed soaring fossil fuel profits as "morally unacceptable" and demanded governments put their people ahead of the bottom lines of oil and gas giants.
  • Guterres said it was "absurd" and "morally unacceptable" that nine fossil fuel majors would reap $95 billion in profits in a single quarter from the price hikes while ordinary people struggled to afford heating and fuel.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday slammed soaring fossil fuel profits as "morally unacceptable" and demanded governments put their people ahead of the bottom lines of oil and gas giants.
In an exclusive interview with AFP at COP31, the outgoing UN chief said no country could pursue new fossil fuels while claiming to fight climate change -- including summit organisers Turkey and Australia. 
The climate conference in Antalya has resurfaced old fault lines over fossil fuels, with some countries pushing for a faster exit from coal, oil and gas while others defend their right to exploit these resources.
The negotiations fall in the midst of a conflict-driven energy crisis that has sharply spiked the cost of diesel, fertilisers and other essential commodities.
Guterres said it was "absurd" and "morally unacceptable" that nine fossil fuel majors would reap $95 billion in profits in a single quarter from the price hikes while ordinary people struggled to afford heating and fuel.
"We are talking about consolidated interests that are not easy to defeat," Guterres told AFP at his final climate summit after a decade at the helm of the United Nations.
"Governments need to protect the interests of their peoples -- not the interests of a group of companies," he said of the oil and gas firms often in his crosshairs.
And that means no new fossil fuel projects, he said -- even if industry groups apply concerted pressure on political leaders in an effort to protect their investments.
"Any new projects of fossil fuels do not make any sense," said the 77-year-old former Portuguese prime minister, who steps down as secretary-general in December.
"Now, obviously, I would prefer that the countries that are in this COP, all would assume that position -- including the organisers."
Turkey celebrated the discovery of new oil fields on the opening day of COP31 while Australia, which is chairing the climate negotiations, faced criticism over recently approved coal mine expansions.
 

Never surrender

 
The wars in Ukraine and Iran, a pandemic, and paralysis in the Security Council have tested Guterres' skills as a diplomat but on fossil fuels the UN chief has rarely pulled any punches.
From his global pulpit, he has railed against "the godfathers of climate chaos", accusing the oil and gas lobby of "killing our planet" and governments of "subsidising suicide" by propping up the industry.
His fiery rhetoric has made him a champion among the climate movement -- and something of a rarity at the COPs.
Neither Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese nor COP31 President Murat Kurum mentioned fossil fuels once by name during their keynote speeches to world leaders on Wednesday -- despite being the main driver of climate change.
By contrast, Guterres received raucous ovations as he called for fossil fuels to "go the way of the dinosaurs" and castigated governments for stalling the transition to clean energy.
"This is an existential threat... we cannot minimise it. And I think we need to use a language that is clear enough for people to understand that we are really facing a severe risk at the present moment," he said of his trademark flourishes.
"Secretary-General Guterres is a true global hero," former US vice president Al Gore, himself a celebrated climate campaigner, told AFP in Antalya.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate said Guterres "deserves the thanks of the entire world and I hope the next secretary-general will follow his example".
But for the thundering prose, Guterres leaves office with a world far hotter than when he took office in 2017 shortly after the landmark Paris Agreement took effect.
Despite the explosion of electric cars and solar power, fossil fuel demand is surging, global emissions are at record highs, and the 1.5C limit will be breached in a matter of years.
Most political leaders "have not yet fully understood that this is becoming a crisis moment" and without drastic cuts to planet-heating emissions, the world is condemned to a bleaker future, he said.
But "we have not lost the battle", he said. "This is not the moment to surrender -- this is the moment to fight back".
np/lt/phz

UN

London mayor says cities key to climate fight

BY JULIEN MIVIELLE

  • Answer: "It's really exciting that for the first time what you'll see at COP is a mayor addressing the world leaders summit, and I think that's a recognition... that cities have a huge role to play.
  • Cities guzzle energy and have exploding populations, but they can play a key role in solving climate change, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said on the sidelines of the COP31 climate talks.
  • Answer: "It's really exciting that for the first time what you'll see at COP is a mayor addressing the world leaders summit, and I think that's a recognition... that cities have a huge role to play.
Cities guzzle energy and have exploding populations, but they can play a key role in solving climate change, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said on the sidelines of the COP31 climate talks.
Khan, who co-chairs C40 Cities, a network dedicated to tackling global warming, told AFP in an interview about his vision for cities, sustainable data centres, and why the climate and cost-of-living crises are linked.
 
Question: UN climate talks are negotiated at the national level. What role do cities have here?
Answer: "It's really exciting that for the first time what you'll see at COP is a mayor addressing the world leaders summit, and I think that's a recognition... that cities have a huge role to play.
"More than half the world's population lives in cities. We consume more than 70 percent of energy. We can be a problem or we can be a solution, and this shows that we're seen very much as a solution, turning this climate catastrophe into an opportunity."
 
Q: How can we deal with climate change in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis?
A: "One of the things we've seen in London is the costs of inaction far outweigh the costs of action.
"In London this year, like in other parts of the globe, we had extreme weather... We've calculated heat waves meant our economy lost £2.5 billion in lost productivity -- over 10 years, that's £25 billion in lost productivity. That's before you get to the costs of wildfires and ill health and death and so forth...
"We've seen the cost of living going up because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine. We've seen because of President Trump's actions in Iran the cost of fuel going up.
"The best way for a country like ours to be energy secure is renewables, wind, solar and nuclear. So I think people are starting to realise there's a link between the cost of living and fossil fuels."
 
Q: Your London data-centre plans have sparked controversy. What is your response?
A: "Many of us use data centres indirectly, whether it's use of AI or public services or financial services. We've got to make sure that we address the issues, though, of data centres in terms of the energy they use, in terms of the water they use, in terms of the impact on the grid.
"What we've done in London is, we're consulting on a draft London plan. We want our data centres to be sustainable. We want the communities to benefit from them. We want to make sure they've got a closed loop when it comes to how they're cooled down.
"So we're making sure that we've got the best possible policies in terms of any data centres that will be given official (permission) in London. Across the globe, we're working with C40 cities -- there's 96 (members) -- on a sustainable data-centres strategy to make sure we recognise that, yes, many of us may need data centres, but it's going to be done in a sensible, proportionate way."
 
Q: Do you agree with those who say the expectations for COP31 are limited?
A: "I'm incredibly hopeful about our ability to tackle the climate emergency. I'm hopeful because of the results we've seen in elections in Serbia... in Brazil... in the midterms in the USA.
"The energy outside is quite encouraging... We are hopeful, and the evidence I've seen in terms of the solutions cities are bringing forward... is really encouraging."
jmi/jum/sla/jhb/ach 

UN

Venezuelan leader drums up oil investment at UN climate talks

BY ÁLVARO VILLALOBOS

  • On Wednesday, Rodriguez held a bilateral meeting with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, during which the pair talked about increasing Brazilian investment in Venezuela's oil sector.
  • Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez and her team are at the UN climate talks with an unusual agenda: drumming up oil investment and defending the use of fossil fuels.
  • On Wednesday, Rodriguez held a bilateral meeting with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, during which the pair talked about increasing Brazilian investment in Venezuela's oil sector.
Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez and her team are at the UN climate talks with an unusual agenda: drumming up oil investment and defending the use of fossil fuels.
Addressing the COP31 summit in Turkey on Thursday, Rodriguez insisted on her country's "sovereign right" to develop its oil industry.
"We believe there is no inevitable contradiction between energy development and environmental protection, because a just transition does not shut down economies -- it transforms them," said Rodriguez, whose country is home to the world's biggest proven oil reserves.
She and her delegation at the talks, which includes Venezuelan oil minister Paula Henao, have put that stance into action with a series of meetings seeking investment in the country's badly underfunded crude industry.
On Wednesday, Rodriguez held a bilateral meeting with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, during which the pair talked about increasing Brazilian investment in Venezuela's oil sector.
On Thursday, Henao met with Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, whose country is keen to develop oil and gas projects overseas.
"We comprehensively discussed potential joint projects in the hydrocarbons sector, particularly oil and natural gas," Bayraktar said on X.
 

Balancing act

 
Rodriguez, who became interim leader in January, after US troops captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in a dramatic raid, is looking to breathe new life into her crisis-racked country's languishing oil sector.
The industry has suffered from decades of underinvestment and sanctions, and its export revenues are now under American oversight -- including a deal for US access to more than 65 billion barrels of oil, about 20 percent of Venezuela's proven reserves.
But Rodriguez's oil push is at odds with the key climate conference goal of weaning the world off fossil fuels.
Brazil, which hosted last year's talks, is pushing for every country to draw up a road map for transitioning away from fossil fuels.
However, in a delicate balancing act, veteran leftist Lula continues to champion oil exploration, a key sector for Brazil.
Lula, whose country is Latin America's top crude producer, argues oil revenues can help fund the clean-energy transition.
Brazilian Environment Minister Joao Paulo Capobianco addressed the controversy that stance has caused when asked about Lula's meeting with Rodriguez.
"We don't believe there's any contradiction, because Brazil is pursuing an accelerated energy transition agenda, it's the country that invests the most in biofuels," he told a press conference.
But he added that oil "is still a strategic resource from an international point of view".
 

Contradictions a 'habit'

 
Venezuela's lingering focus on oil -- out of sync with the prevailing rhetoric at the conference on curbing planet-warming fossil fuels -- is a product of the country's crude "dependency" going back decades, said former Colombian environment minister Irene Velez Torres.
As for Brazil, "yes, there are contradictions" on fossil fuels, though that is common among oil- and gas-producing nations, she told AFP.
"These contradictions are permanent fixtures of our national agendas, of the political tensions that have to be navigated," said Velez, who co-organised the First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Colombia in April, bringing together nearly 60 countries.
Such contradictions have become a "habit" in climate negotiations, said Ariel Slipak, research coordinator at the Argentina-based Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN), criticising planet-saving plans that get announced to great fanfare but "never get implemented".
avl/jhb/phz

UN

UK appoints 'climate security' envoy, a world first

  • "As evidence of that, I am today announcing the appointment of Dame Madeleine Alessandri as the first UK special representative for climate security," he said.
  • British Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced on Thursday the appointment of a special envoy focused on "climate security", a world first, to better prepare for the growing impacts of global warming.
  • "As evidence of that, I am today announcing the appointment of Dame Madeleine Alessandri as the first UK special representative for climate security," he said.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced on Thursday the appointment of a special envoy focused on "climate security", a world first, to better prepare for the growing impacts of global warming.
In a speech to the UN's COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, the Labour leader recalled that he spent his first three weeks as prime minister this past summer responding to the worst wildfires Britain ever experienced.
"I decided then it was important for me to be here to show British leadership in a world where climate issues have taken too much of a backseat," said Burnham, who was the only G7 leader attending the summit.
Britain and the rest of western Europe experienced their hottest summer on record, with a succession of heatwaves and wildfires. The heat caused tens of thousands of excess deaths on the continent.
"Climate is a national security issue," Burnham said.
"As evidence of that, I am today announcing the appointment of Dame Madeleine Alessandri as the first UK special representative for climate security," he said.
Alessandri is the former head of the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee, the body that briefs ministers on security threats.
"In this role, I will work with partners across government and internationally to strengthen our understanding of climate threats, build resilience, and ensure we are better prepared for the challenges ahead," Alessandri said in a statement.
Britain has a climate minister, Katie White, who is in Antalya for the COP31 talks that are scheduled to end on November 20.
Cosima Cassel, an expert at climate think-tank E3G, said countries often have climate envoys and climate security is part of their remit.
"This is the first climate security envoy specifically," she told AFP.
"This appointment elevates that issue to the level it deserves, and other governments should consider a similar model," Cassel said.
Environmental group Greenpeace also said the appointment was a "welcome move" as climate change is a "threat multiplier".
Greenpeace, however, criticised Burnham for his recent decision to authorise drilling a gas field in the North Sea.
"The choices he makes over the coming weeks and months will decide if his speech today was more than hot air," Ami McCarthy, head of politics at Greenpeace UK, told AFP.
lt/st

climate

Afghanistan's olive groves give farmers relief from climate crisis

BY ISABELLE WESSELINGH AND BAREZ ATEF

  • "I said to myself, "let's try something," because the important thing for me in agriculture is that we have to think about water resources and how to adapt to climate change," he said.
  • Olives tumble with a gentle "plop" onto a tarpaulin in eastern Afghanistan, an unusual, drought-resistant harvest offering hope to farmers who have struggled as climate change worsens water shortages.
  • "I said to myself, "let's try something," because the important thing for me in agriculture is that we have to think about water resources and how to adapt to climate change," he said.
Olives tumble with a gentle "plop" onto a tarpaulin in eastern Afghanistan, an unusual, drought-resistant harvest offering hope to farmers who have struggled as climate change worsens water shortages.
Drought and water scarcity affect more than half of the country's population, according to the United Nations,pushing some farmers to seek alternatives to maize, rice or wheat.
Abdullah Orzala's olive grove, first planted 15 years ago on his family's land in Saidan Arabi village, in eastern Nangarhar province, is one such success story.
"I said to myself, "let's try something," because the important thing for me in agriculture is that we have to think about water resources and how to adapt to climate change," he said.
"And the olive tree is one of the best drought-resistant trees in the world."
The gnarled evergreens also strengthen human resilience to climate change by improving soil health and reducing erosion, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
That is useful in Nangarhar, where farmers have been facing crop failures and competition over shrinking water resources, according to UN press release in June.
"Other things like wheat, like rice, like onions, you have to give them more water, but olive trees don't need a lot of water," said production supervisor Sadiqullah Afghan, 29. 
"So, people like these trees for the future."
 

Fruitful effort

 
Olives are not a traditional ingredient in Afghan cuisine, and the country's yields are tiny compared to major European producers.
But they can be a valuable cash crop for rural communities, who sell them to traders or stores in cities, where there is a nascent market for the health-giving fruits and their oil.
In November, the 500 villagers of Saidan Arabi hand-pick olives from their organic orchards and cold-press them at an experimental mill in a lush, mud-walled garden.
"We press the olives immediately to ensure better quality," Afghan said.
The oil is sold for up to $17 per kilogram in the capital Kabul's organic-product shops.
Orzala has planted thousands more olive trees in another village in Nangarhar, creating 16 permanent jobs across the two areas.
The plant specialist, who fled Afghanistan as a child, studied in the United States and returned in 2003, hopes to establish a permanent mill and expand sales across Afghanistan and beyond.
 

A Mediterranean landscape

 
Along the road from provincial capital Jalalabad to the Pakistani border, vast olive groves stretch across the landscape, giving it an almost Mediterranean character.
They date to the 1960s, and a Soviet-built mill began making oil in 1985. But successive wars later destroyed nearly half of Afghanistan's total area for olive cultivation.
The industry is now recovering. Italy provided new equipment to the mill in 2019, and the Taliban authorities have expanded operations since returning to power in 2021.
Output from the state-owned company is increasing, with around 70 people working at the mill, which produces extra-virgin oil and table olives.
While national production is negligible compared to world leader Spain, director Akhtar Muhammad Hashimi said the mill churned out 135,000 litres of oil last year, around 124 tonnes.
"This year, we expect between 143,000 and 165,000 litres," all of it sold in Afghanistan, Hashimi said.
"We hope one day to gain access to the international market," he told AFP.
 

'Great hope'

 
But therein lies a problem.
Global olive oil consumption has nearly doubled in the past 30 years, according to the International Olive Council, but Afghanistan's banking isolation and diplomatic exclusion pose major obstacles to reaching international markets.
Only Russia recognises the Taliban government, which bars girls from education beyond primary school and imposes sweeping restrictions on women.
Still, olive cultivation is expanding in eastern and southern Afghanistan. The FAO has planted 381 hectares, citing their use in "creating long-term income opportunities for rural families".
In eastern Laghman province, businessman Mohammad Nazir Ahmadzai, who made his fortune in Kuwait, said he had planted 15,000 young trees on land "leased from the state".
And in Saidan Arabi, 20-year-old Orzala estate worker Sani Khan laughed as he recalled locals' initial scepticism about the initially unfamiliar tree with its bitter fruit.
Over time, people realised olives were "resistant to water shortage" and better than poppies, whose sap fuels the illicit opium trade, "because of the higher income", he said.
Now, Sani added, "people look at this tree with great hope".
ba-iw/ash/csp/mjw/abs

UN

World urged to tackle fossil fuels but big names skip COP31

BY LAURENT THOMET AND NICK PERRY

  • The dinosaurs did not have a lobby, but fossil fuels do," he said in another salvo against an industry he has long accused of fuelling climate chaos.
  • UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres railed against the oil and gas lobby on Wednesday, telling world leaders fossil fuels "must go the way of the dinosaurs" at a climate summit missing several prominent figures.
  • The dinosaurs did not have a lobby, but fossil fuels do," he said in another salvo against an industry he has long accused of fuelling climate chaos.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres railed against the oil and gas lobby on Wednesday, telling world leaders fossil fuels "must go the way of the dinosaurs" at a climate summit missing several prominent figures.
The two-week COP31 talks kicked off in Turkey this week with governments under pressure to tackle climate change after a year of searing heatwaves and wildfires in Europe, and deadly floods in Nepal.
"The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us," Guterres told dozens of world leaders assembled in the Mediterranean city of Antalya for two days of speeches by heads of state and government.
But few major breakthroughs are anticipated at the COP31 negotiations, which run until November 20, as countries grapple with an oil price shock and geopolitical tensions fuelled by the US war with Iran and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Since agreeing in 2023 for the first time to transition away from fossil fuels -- the main driver of climate change -- nations have struggled to advance that goal at the annual UN conferences.
At his final COP before stepping down in December, Guterres said governments cannot keep expanding fossil fuel production while claiming to support the fight against climate change.
"Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs, but that won't happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby, but fossil fuels do," he said in another salvo against an industry he has long accused of fuelling climate chaos.
"Their strategy is simple: Distort the science. Delay the policy. Delay the action. Delay the accountability. It's time to kick the habit –- and end the fossil fuel addiction," he said to sustained applause.
 

Climate silence

 
But some big names are missing at COP31, with British Prime Minister Andy Burnham the only leader from a G7 country scheduled to address the summit.
"Since the start of this year, climate change has disappeared from speeches and documents from our global leadership," recently re-elected Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told fellow leaders.
"We've turned to talking more about arms and tariffs than the survival of future generations," he said.
Climate campaigners breathed a huge sigh of relief when Lula, who has overseen a dramatic drop in deforestation in the Amazon, defeated right-wing rival Flavio Bolsonaro in last month's presidential election.
"Brazil is back to defend the continuity of a healthy planet," Lula said.
While European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen spoke in Antalya, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni were among the European leaders not present.
The leaders of Canada, Japan and India are also expected to skip the event while Chinese President Xi Jinping, who rarely attends COPs, was represented by Vice President Han Zheng.
Unsurprisingly, President Donald Trump, who pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement, is also not attending.
 
- Fossil fear - 
 
Climate activists singled out two of Wednesday's higher-profile speakers -- the EU's von der Leyen and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese -- for failing to mention fossil fuels by name during their speeches.
Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine, whose Pacific nation is threatened by rising sea levels, said "every new oil well drilled, every new piece of coal extracted is a threat to my country's future".
"The discovery of new fossil fuel resources is not something to celebrate, but something to fear," she said.
Her message stood in stark contrast to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who earlier this week announced the "good news" that his country had discovered new oil fields.
In his address Wednesday, Erdogan said the world needed a "fair" energy transition that "takes into account the energy security and different development needs of different countries".
Saudi Arabia's Energy Minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, warned that "the quest for carbon neutrality without guaranteeing energy security can undermine our efforts".
"The measures that are aimed at protecting the climate should not constitute barriers facing countries and impede their achievements of economic development," he said.
Finland announced concrete plans to phase out fossil fuels, becoming just the fourth country after France, Germany and the Netherlands to do so.
COP31 host Turkey is championing a voluntary initiative to accelerate the electrification of transport, buildings and industry, with a target of raising electricity's share of global energy consumption to 35 percent by 2035.
The EU has stressed that electrification must be "clean", which could spark debate over the role of oil, gas and coal in the Turkish proposal.
alb-np/lt/phz