- As the UN climate summit starts in Türkiye’s Antalya, wars and energy insecurity are pulling governments towards short-term national interests although warming oceans, melting ice and accelerating climate impacts make collective action more urgent.
- Renewable energy offers a route to greater energy security, but the 35-by-35 pledge and Brazil’s fossil fuel exit roadmap to be discussed at the summit need firm national commitments and investment to deliver meaningful change.
- The annual climate conference has an ambitious agenda, but the prospects for significant progress are modest.
- Developing countries like India need substantially greater finance and support to adapt to climate damage and pursue a just transition.
When delegates from around the world gather in the Mediterranean resort town of Antalya in the Turkish Riviera for the annual, two-week United Nations climate summit (COP31) that begins on November 9, they meet at a time when wars and geopolitical rivalries are pushing governments to protect their immediate national interests even as rising temperatures, warming oceans and melting ice are making the costs of delayed climate action harder to contain. Although the need for countries to work together has rarely been greater, their willingness to do so is far less certain.
The formal negotiations at the UN climate conference in Antalya will address adaptation and resilience, emissions reduction, climate finance and a just transition. Alongside them, the Turkish host’s action agenda will pursue practical progress on clean energy, electrification, food security, oceans and resilient cities, bringing together businesses, investors and other groups.
Türkiye’s 35-by-35 electrification pledge and previous host Brazil’s roadmap for moving away from fossil fuels offer grounds for progress. Renewable energy continues to expand despite political and economic uncertainty. But the gap between the climate crisis and the political response remains enormous. COP31 could advance the work, but it is unlikely to resolve the contradictions that hold it back.
A planet under pressure
The evidence is stark. The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Global Climate 2025 confirms that 2015-25 were the 11 hottest years on record. The planet’s energy imbalance has reached its highest level in 65 years, while oceans have absorbed enormous amounts of excess heat.
Warmer oceans, shrinking glaciers and melting ice sheets are changing the systems that regulate the planet. Ocean heating contributes to sea-level rise and can intensify extreme weather. Glacier loss threatens water supplies, while damage to major ice sheets can lock in sea-level rise for centuries.
The International Cryosphere Climate Initiative’s State of the Cryosphere 2026, published on November 2, examines the consequences of exceeding critical temperature thresholds. Overshooting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C goal is no longer a remote prospect. How far temperatures rise and how long they remain elevated will matter. Some damage, particularly the ice loss, cannot be reversed even when temperatures fall.
For India, changes in the Hindu Kush Himalaya affect glaciers, river systems and water security for billions. Coastal communities face rising seas and flooding, while heat and extreme rainfall threaten lives, livelihoods, agriculture and infrastructure.
The landmark Paris Agreement seeks to hold warming well below 2°C while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. Though that threshold is at serious risk, every fraction of a degree avoided is important. The UN Environment Programme’s Emissions Gap Report 2026 says far deeper emissions cuts are needed to return below 1.5°C after an overshoot. The goal of the international treaty remains relevant, but time is running out. UN Secretary-General António Guterres spelled out the reality at the Climate Summit in New York on September 23. “We must match an accelerating crisis with accelerating action,” he said.
War and energy
War changes what governments consider urgent. When conflict threatens fuel supplies and raises prices, governments must secure energy, protect households and keep factories running. Expanding domestic coal, oil and gas can then look safer than investing in a transition whose benefits may take years to realise. But fossil fuels do not guarantee security. Import-dependent countries remain exposed to disruptions and price shocks that damage public finances and raise living costs. Although renewable energy cannot solve every energy problem, it is not tied to the same vulnerable supply chains as oil and gas.
The BloombergNEF energy outlook argues that successive energy shocks have exposed the insecurity of the present system. Clean power and electrification can reduce dependence on imported fuels, which is a significant opportunity, particularly for India. However, supply shocks can prompt new fossil fuel investment, locking economies into decades of emissions. The Production Gap Report 2025 found that governments collectively plan to produce more than twice the fossil fuels in 2030 that would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C. Countries cannot credibly promise to curb emissions while continuing to expand the supply of the fuels responsible for most of them.
On November 3, Brazil’s COP30 presidency published a roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels. It proposes ways to assess dependence, identify priorities and accelerate a just and orderly transition, with coordinated action through 2033. The roadmap is voluntary, and not a negotiated UN agreement or binding commitment. However, its value is to keep the fossil fuel transition on the international agenda while recognising that countries have different starting points.
A push for electricity
Renewable energy remains one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak outlook. Costs have fallen, deployment has expanded, and solar power is becoming a major source of new electricity. Batteries and electric vehicles are also changing the way energy is stored and used. This momentum matters because it gives governments practical alternatives to imported fossil fuels.
Türkiye’s 35-by-35 Global Electrification Pledge seeks to increase electricity’s share of global final energy consumption to 35% by 2035. Launched in September, it focuses on electrifying buildings, transport and industry, supported by clean power, storage and stronger electricity grids. It also proposes ways to track progress and help developing countries identify investment needs and access finance.
The initiative is useful because electrification can reduce fossil fuel use across several sectors, not just power generation. But its success depends on where the electricity comes from. Electrifying transport or industry without cleaning up the power supply will deliver only limited climate benefits. The pledge will need to be backed by faster renewable deployment, modern grids, storage and finance.
The scale of the task is clear. The World Resources Institute’s State of Climate Action 2025 found that none of the 45 indicators it assessed was on track to meet its 2030 target consistent with the Paris pact’s temperature goal. More than three-quarters were moving in the right direction, but the pace was too slow. Progress in individual technologies has not yet added up to the broad change required across energy, transport, industry, forests and finance, the think tank found.
The 35-by-35 pledge and Brazil’s fossil fuel roadmap could help provide direction for the transition. Neither, however, can substitute for national policies that deliver investment and measurable change. Governments must also confront the political resistance and financial interests that continue to favour fossil fuels.
The cost of delay
The countries most exposed to climate damage are often those with the least money to prepare for it. For them, climate action is not only about reducing emissions. It is also about protecting homes, farms, roads, water supplies and public health from impacts that are already underway.
India illustrates the tension. It needs reliable and affordable energy to support development, while facing growing risks from extreme heat, flooding, coastal change and the loss of Himalayan ice. Its response must include both a faster transition to cleaner energy and greater investment in adaptation. Neither can substitute for the other.
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell made the urgency clear at the official opening of the pre-COP meeting in Fiji on October 7. “Climate impacts are escalating. This will get worse as we head into overshoot. Yet preparedness lags behind,” he said. He called for stronger resilience, faster implementation of national climate plans and climate finance that reaches vulnerable countries. His warning captures the central problem that the physical risks are increasing faster than many nations’ capacity to prepare for them.
India’s Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav has set out the country’s priorities on November 3. Adaptation and climate finance will be central to India’s position, alongside technology transfer and a just transition. On finance, he said developed countries’ contributions must be “predictable, largely public and concessional, and should not add to the debt burden.” The official statement on India’s COP31 priorities also makes clear that India will press for adaptation indicators to remain voluntary and not become conditions for accessing finance.
This exposes a central fault line in climate negotiations. Developing countries are being asked to make deeper changes while facing high costs of capital, limited access to technology and growing climate losses. The UN’s Adaptation Gap Report 2026, published on November 4, estimates that developing countries will need about $305 billion a year by 2035 for adaptation. International public adaptation finance from developed to developing countries reached a measly $28.2 billion to $31.7 billion in 2024. Even if the goal of tripling these flows is achieved, it would meet only a fraction of the need.
For countries already facing debt and development pressures, loans can deepen the problem if they add to repayment burdens after a climate disaster. Public finance, grants, better access to technology and stronger international support are absolutely essential for adapting to a changing climate. Private investment can contribute, but it will not reach every community or fund every public need without effective policy and public support.
Ambition and limits
The Türkiye summit’s agenda is ambitious. Its emphasis on electrification, implementation, resilience and finance reflects the scale of the challenge. The test will be whether countries can turn these priorities into decisions that survive beyond the conference.
Expectations from the Türkiye conference should be measured against the current global backdrop. Climate summits cannot end wars, settle geopolitical rivalries or erase differences between rich and poor nations. They can, however, make it harder for governments to hide the gap between their promises and their actions. They can also build practical cooperation on energy, finance and adaptation when trust between countries is under strain.
The likely gap between COP31’s agenda and its outcomes will reflect the world beyond the negotiating halls, a world that is divided by war, anxious about energy and struggling to respond to mounting climate damage. The 35-by-35 pledge and Brazil’s fossil fuel roadmap offer useful starting points, but their value will be determined by what governments do next. Renewable energy has momentum, but it needs a much stronger push, not another round of declarations.
The world is, for all practical purposes, on course to overshoot 1.5°C. That is a grave warning, not a reason to abandon action. Limiting the scale and duration of the overshoot remains vital. The choice is not between achieving a perfect outcome and doing nothing. It is between limiting the damage and allowing it to grow. The Antalya conference may not deliver the breakthrough the climate crisis demands, but it must at least help prevent the world from losing more time.
Banner image: Brazil’s COP30 presidency has recently released a roadmap outlining pathways for transitioning away from fossil fuels. Image by Kiara Worth/UN Climate Change via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
