By Kennedy Maize
The annual United Nations sponsored gigantic gabfest on global warming is peeking above the horizon.
The 31st “Conference of the Parties” to the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, aka COP31, is scheduled to kick off in Antalya, Turkey, on November 9 and run through November 20. Ministerial-level pre-COP meetings start today (Oct. 5) across the Pacific in Fiji, Tuvalu, and Australia.
If past COPs are a guide, the meeting in Antalya, a resort city of about 1.5 million on the Mediterranean coast, is likely to attract scores of thousands of delegates, staff, academics, activists, skeptics, and waves of looky-loos. Official attendance at COP30 in Brazil last year topped 48,000.
Antalya, Turkey
The UN convention has 198 members and the U.S., one of the original members, is not among them. The U.S. did not officially attend COP30 in Belem, Brazil last November. The U.S. withdrew from the framework convention this January 7.
On Jan. 27, 2026, the US withdrawal from the 2016 Paris Agreement became effective after a year-long process. The US is the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris agreement in his first administration. Biden rejoined in February 2021.
Trump has long trumpeted that climate change is a “hoax,” the term he applies to anything he finds inconvenient, challenging, and difficult, such as “affordability.” In neither case is his epithet accurate.
At a speech in New York in September, UN climate major domo Simon Stiell said, “Holding the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius this century is demanded by science, agreed by nations, and essential to protect every person and economy. Yet exceeding that limit is now guaranteed, at least temporarily. A recent report by the UN Environment Programme reaffirms it.”
Nonetheless, said Stiell with typical UN hyperbole, “UN-convened cooperation – and national efforts – have reduced the projected global temperature rise – from well over 4 degrees Celsius, to 2.6 degrees Celsius – undeniable progress but not enough to avoid catastrophe.”
Global warming is undeniably a serious problem warranting concerted effort to manage. “Catastrophe” is likely a characterization too far, although less than the ultra scary label of climate change as an “existential” threat.
Stiell also pointed to a real trend that international cooperation has impacted, although less so than classical economics: the rise of renewable energy worldwide including, to Trump’s dismay, the United States. Stiell said, “Take new data released today by the International Renewable Energy Agency: last year, renewable capacity additions reached a record high: 693GW. That’s over half the installed power capacity of the entire United States.”
What’s on the official agenda for COP31? The key leaders of the upcoming conference met in Bonn, Germany, in June to outline their major goals for the coming meeting, headed by Murat Kurum, Turkey’s Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change and COP31 president.
At the Bonn confab, Kurum came up with three specific goals for the upcoming meeting. First, most significant, and perhaps most ambitious: “increase the share of final energy demand met by electricity from just over 20% today to 35% by 2035.”
UN news release described it: “The target is based on analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and is designed to support implementation of the Paris Agreement and help keep the world on a pathway consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
Kurum highlighted two other goals for COP31: halving the growth in global waste by 2035; reducing energy consumption intensity in the building sector by at least 25% by 2035.
In past COPs the formal goals have often been overshadowed by issues raised by ad hoc groups of participants, coalescing around regional and ideological issues, and sometimes by industry interests pushing their own economic issues, such as nuclear power.
A new global issue – artificial intelligence – likely will make an impact at COP31. The UN’s Stiell raised it in his New York speech: “Energy guzzling Artificial Intelligence is driving up planet-heating pollution from coal, oil and gas, while ratcheting up energy costs for households and businesses. All while fueling disinformation, social division, and even larger inequalities of wealth.
“AI leaders are now on thin ice when it comes to license to operate, and sinking deep underwater when it comes to public support.
“If AI can solve a 90-year-old math problem in days, it can do more on key climate challenges: building on existing efforts, in areas such as improving early warning systems for climate disasters. And accelerating grid efficiency….
“We need every country to benefit from AI today – not vague promises of future solutions. That means addressing the barriers faced by developing countries. And creating accessible, efficient solutions. In the world’s climate fight, there’s already a worrying two-speed global transition. AI must help bridge, not inflame, this divide.”
The Quad Report, covering energy policy and politics