World leaders urge stronger and faster action at UN climate talks over inadequate response
ANTALYA, Turkey (AP) — It's time to act decisively and urgently to curb global warming, which is wreaking havoc with deadly floods,heat waves and other disasters, the United Nations chief told world leaders Wednesday as formal talks began at the U.N. climate conference in Turkey.
“We know the truth. Now we must act on it because climate action is more than a fight over a number or a thermometer," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in an opening speech. “We are in the fight for our lives and our children’s future."
But top leaders of the world’s three biggest polluting nations — China, the United States and India, together responsible for more than half of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions — skipped the summit, known as COP31.
Their absence left a handful of national leaders and U.N. officials to press for action as a new report warned of a widening gap between countries’ climate pledges and actual emissions cuts.
Scientists say global warming is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Limiting warming to that threshold was a goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement and remains a focus of international negotiations.
Guterres outlined a framework for climate negotiations, saying they must prioritize ending fossil fuel reliance, adapting to a warmer world, increasing financial support for poorer countries bearing the brunt of climate change, and promoting cooperation over conflict.
“We do not need countries to agree on everything. But we do need them to cooperate on the things no country can solve alone,” he said.
But addressing climate change has been overshadowed by wars, inflation and geopolitical conflicts, Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said. He pledged to protect the Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, and urged world leaders to work together for a just, sustainable future.
“Brazil is back to defend the continuity of a healthy planet,” he said.
More than 70 world leaders and senior government officials are speaking at the summit, though what can be accomplished remains uncertain in the absence of leaders from key nations.
“It really is a disgrace that just one of the seven G7 heads of state and only a handful of G20 leaders are attending this summit,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a climate and energy think tank. “The world’s biggest economies should be leading the response to the climate crisis, not leaving it to others.”
The United States, the world’s second-largest polluter after China, is absent from the talks for the second consecutive year. President Donald Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, has targeted offshore wind projects and removed rules limiting power plant emissions.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen attended, but many leaders of European countries stayed away.
“More than half of the top leaders of the EU countries are not showing up at the leaders’ summit,” Climate Action Network Europe Director Chiara Martinelli told The Associated Press. “If Europe wants to help steer the global transition, it needs to show up and be part of it.”
The gap between nations' climate plans and action on the ground is widening, according to an annual climate change performance index published Wednesday by Germanwatch and the New Climate Institute.
“Overall, current collective efforts are not enough to prevent catastrophic climate change. But we see clear potential for improvement,” said Jan Burck of Germanwatch.
Ranking among the worst performers in limiting emissions were COP31 host Turkey and Australia, which is leading the negotiations.
The talks come as the war in Iran has driven up global prices for oil, gasoline and products such as fertilizers and pesticides. Those increases have prompted governments to rethink energy policies and investment in renewable sources such as wind and solar.
Past talks have been criticized for producing promises that later went unfulfilled.
Delegates at the 2023 conference in Dubai agreed to transition away from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, the main drivers of climate change. But subsequent conferences in Azerbaijan and Brazil yielded little agreement on how to reduce their use. Last year’s conference in Brazil produced a compromise deal pledging more money to help vulnerable nations adapt to climate change.
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Milko reported from Islamabad and Webber reported from Chicago. Associated Press journalists Seth Borenstein Kensington, Maryland, and Sibi Arasu in Bengaluru, India, contributed to this report.
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