Türkiye Seeks to Redirect Global Climate Action at COP31

(MENAFN) The UN climate summit held last year in Belem, Brazil, deep in the Amazon rainforest, failed to deliver the decisive progress the world urgently required. However, Türkiye now has an opportunity to reshape that trajectory at COP31.

At COP30 in November 2025, expectations were high for a clear, time-bound plan to phase out fossil fuels. Instead, the final declaration avoided any binding pledge to exit fossil fuels, leaving what many observers consider the most pressing issue of the climate emergency unresolved.

Speaking to a news agency, Umit Sahin, coordinator of Climate Change Studies at Sabanci University’s Istanbul Policy Center, noted that COP30 was significantly weakened by the absence of the United States, historically one of the largest polluters, after President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement and pursued policies openly hostile to renewable energy expansion.

Although Brazil’s symbolic choice to host the summit in Belem raised hopes of bold action on deforestation, no binding roadmap was agreed to halt or reverse forest loss — a crucial tool in limiting global warming.

COP30 did establish a just transition framework for workers and communities moving away from fossil fuels and pledged to triple adaptation finance by 2035 under the New Collective Quantified Goal — aiming for at least $300 billion annually in public funding and $1.3 trillion from all sources for developing nations. Yet Sahin emphasized that these measures fell far short of the transformative action needed.

“We expected landmark decisions on deforestation right there in the Amazon,” Sahin said. “Regrettably, that did not happen.”

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