COP31 opens in Antalya with push to accelerate electrification

From November 9-20, representatives from almost every nation will meet in Antalya, with Turkey as official host and Australia leading the negotiations. The conference's promotional campaign features a video with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife, Emine, who called climate change "one of the most visible manifestations of the burden human activity has placed on our planet."

The urgency is underscored by a summer of severe drought, extreme heat, wildfires and record-low water levels on major European rivers, and by flash floods in Nepal and Tibet triggered by a rock-ice avalanche that killed more than 1,400 people. Climate experts have linked that disaster to melting ice and warming temperatures.

Globally, carbon emissions continue to rise. The UN has concluded it is no longer possible to keep global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the goal set at COP21 in 2015. Under current climate commitments, the latest UN projections show warming of up to 2.6°C if fully implemented. While that is an improvement from the 3-3.5°C trajectory before the Paris Agreement, David Victor, a climate expert at the University of California San Diego, cautioned against expecting too much from COP31. "There's no question that we could be doing more," he said, but called the talks "like a giant Christmas tree in which everybody's hung their different ornaments, and the tree is groaning and more ornaments are being put on it." Victor argued that smaller "clubs" of governments and companies working together on specific sectors like aviation, shipping or electromobility may achieve more than the full consensus process.

Hosts Turkey and Australia have included green industrialization and the clean energy transition among their aims. One specific target is raising the share of electricity in global energy consumption to 35% by 2035, up from about 20% today. A recent International Energy Agency analysis found that accelerating electrification could cut fuel-importing countries' energy bills by more than $400 billion (€357 billion) by 2035 compared to 2025 levels, an argument that could appeal to regions dependent on fossil fuel imports such as Germany and the EU. German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider said his country and the EU wanted to spark new momentum in the "global phaseout of fossil fuels," describing it as an opportunity for countries to boost their economies and reduce import dependence.

However, oil-producing states such as Saudi Arabia have repeatedly blocked agreements that include phaseout plans at recent climate summits. China, despite its massive expansion of wind and solar energy, has traditionally rejected outside demands on its energy policy decisions.

Climate financing remains a divisive issue. At the 2024 talks in Baku, industrialized nations agreed to free up at least $300 billion annually in climate financing by 2035 to help vulnerable countries cope with global warming. But several major developed countries, notably the US, have cut development aid. Germany paid out €4.7 billion from its 2025 budget for international climate financing, down from €6.1 billion in 2024. "The level of financial support for developing countries today is far from what's needed," said Jan Kowalzig, a climate expert at Oxfam Germany. The article said breaking financial promises could cost Germany and other industrialized nations the trust of developing countries and the diplomatic power they rely on to shape climate policy.

Cosima Cassel, who focuses on climate diplomacy at the think tank E3G in Berlin, said Turkey's push to turbocharge electrification during an oil crisis could succeed. A successful outcome, she said, would show actual political will behind the grand agreements, taking grid expansion and battery storage seriously, and removing barriers to further electrification.