Istanbul, Nov 9. (dpa/GNA) – The 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) opens in the Turkish city of Antalya on Monday.
Tens of thousands of delegates, observers and media representatives are expected to attend the two-week meeting of around 200 nations, which will discuss the fight against the climate crisis.
The summit comes just days after climate researchers, warned that the year 2026 will almost certainly see global warming exceed the 1.5-degree-Celsius mark compared with pre-industrial levels.
Turkey is hosting the latest summit, and is providing the COP President in the form of Environment Minister Murat Kurum.
Australia, meanwhile, is sending Climate Minister Chris Bowen as the “President of Negotiations,” whose role is to explore avenues for compromise and facilitate the adoption of consensus-based final texts.
This division of roles this year is new and unusual and critics fear they will lead to friction and say that even during the preparatory phase, individual proposals were clearly not coordinated.
With unprecedented wildfires, deadly heatwaves, flash floods and droughts hitting all continents, the climate crisis has been acutely felt this past year.
COP31 is aimed at curbing this crisis. The Paris Agreement has been in force for 10 years. Under it, around 200 countries agreed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees compared with pre-industrial levels in order to avert the most catastrophic consequences.
Instead, however, the latest United Nations forecast states that, with current climate policies, the world is heading for a 2.8-degree rise by the end of the century.
GNA