San Francisco Frontiers - COP31 eyes modest steps as climate disasters multiply

The conference follows deadly heatwaves and fires in Europe, catastrophic floods in Nepal and record temperatures around the world, testing whether the United Nations-backed talks can keep pace with reality.

As leaders meet in Turkey, an exceptionally powerful El Nino pattern will be approaching peak strength, threatening to amplify weather chaos worldwide and drive global heat to unprecedented highs.

Concerns over energy security will also loom large, with no end in sight to the Middle East war that has sent oil and gas prices soaring and hit fossil fuel-importing nations hard.

With a new agreement on fossil fuels unlikely, Turkey is rallying support for a voluntary "electrification" pledge it says could cut heat-trapping emissions and reduce reliance on energy imports.

"In many ways, the defining contexts for this year's climate summit will be heat and Hormuz," said David Waskow from the World Resources Institute, referencing the vital strait that carried one-fifth of the world's hydrocarbons before the Iran war.

Unusually, Turkey must navigate these complexities with Australia, a major fossil fuel exporter, after both countries agreed to share COP31 duties following a bruising hosting battle.

Australia's Climate Minister Chris Bowen, who is leading the negotiations in Antalya starting November 9, said this year's extreme events "show climate change is not a future challenge".

"It is a present reality... and the costs of inaction are rising," he said.

A "pre-COP" meeting began Monday in the climate-vulnerable Pacific with a leaders' retreat in Tuvalu and government meetings in Fiji.

- Stalemate -

Unlike recent COPs -- where nearly 200 nations forged landmark pacts on phasing down coal or moving away from fossil fuels -- the negotiation agenda at COP31 is light on big-ticket items.

There are more than 100 items on the table but many deal with technical matters, like approving indicators to track progress on climate adaptation.

"Much of the Antalya summit will be a 'roll up the sleeves' effort. Governments need to make concrete headway in negotiations, though there may not be dramatic outcomes this year," Waskow told AFP.

Nations are not expected to adopt new binding commitments to reduce the burning of fossil fuels -- the leading cause of climate change.

Countries agreed in 2023 to move away from coal, oil and gas but since then efforts to negotiate concrete targets or timelines for that transition have gone nowhere.

At last year's summit, fossil fuels were not mentioned by name in the final agreement after oil and gas-producing nations prevented consensus on the issue.

"Everyone agrees there will be no real gain at the multilateral level at the moment," Marta Torres-Gunfaus from the IDDRI think tank told AFP.

Fossil fuel emissions, meanwhile, hit record highs in 2025.

In September, the UN conceded that the milestone 1.5C climate target will be missed in a matter of years.

Nations frustrated at the COP gridlock have sought progress elsewhere.

Nearly 60 countries attended a fossil fuel phaseout conference without UN involvement this year.

France, the Netherlands and Germany have published "roadmaps" with explicit deadlines for quitting coal, oil and gas.

UN Climate chief Simon Stiell has defended the negotiations while acknowledging their limitations: "No single COP can fix this global crisis, but each takes meaningful steps forward," he said.

- Pressure -

Turkey says it is not realistic to expect all countries to move at the same pace.

"Any proposal that fails to reconcile our climate objectives with social and economic realities will be doomed to fail," said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey is curating an "action agenda" alongside the negotiations that encourages countries to support non-binding pledges on issues from artificial intelligence to waste management.

There is broad support for its centrepiece goal: raising the share of global energy demand met by electricity from around 20 percent today to 35 percent by 2035.

The electrification target does not state how that extra power should be produced. One-third of electricity is generated by coal, and there are concerns the target could provide cover for expanded fossil fuel use.

The Nepal floods would also put "a huge amount of pressure" on western countries to increase financial support for climate disaster recovery, said Ajay Mathur, a former Indian government negotiator.

"We did not create this crisis, yet we are paying for it," Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah said.

S.Jackson--SFF