For a long decade, 1.5 degrees were something like the holy figure in the particular liturgy of climate summits. With the memory of the Paris Agreement now distant, nearly 200 countries are coming together today at COP31 Antalya (Turkey), to confirm for the first time the anathema: the overshoot is now "inevitable" and the average temperature of the Earth will soon exceed one and a half degrees compared to the pre-industrial era.
"The window has closed," certifies Inger Andersen, head of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), with a certain anger bordering on resignation. «It is clear that the herculean effort that was required has not been made... But this is not the time to throw in the towel. “Every fraction of a degree we avoid going up will save lives, protect ecosystems and prevent economic losses.”
Limiting the overshoot will be the motto written between the lines at COP31, knowing that we are moving - in the best of cases - towards 1.8 degrees by mid-century with the environmental policies in force, and in the certainty that greenhouse gas emissions should fall by 69% between now and 2040 to avoid overheating, an unrealistic scenario with the current trend.
As irrefutable proof of where we are moving, we have the scorching summer of 2026 in Europe, with a succession of heat waves that caused more than 50,000 more deaths than expected, with fires that devastated 680,000 hectares and with large rivers such as the Danube and the Rhine reaching their historic bottom. The old continent is the one that is warming the most, at a rate that almost doubles the rest of the planet. Summer temperatures were 2.9 degrees above the average of the last 30 years across Europe, and Spain took the cake with a rise of 3.4 degrees in the warmest September on record.
The COPs are usually held in the middle of autumn with the fall of the leaves, but the summer cicadas will sound louder than ever this year on the shores of the Mediterranean, at a summit that was initially going to be held in Adelaide, with the focus on the Pacific island countries. In any case, Australia assumes the presidency of the negotiations, although Türkiye reserves "the last word", amid growing tensions over political control of the summit. Saudi Arabia will predictably once again be the bad guy, and the United States, despite Donald Trump's recent setback, will torpedo the climate summit from outside for the second consecutive year, in its dual capacity as the largest oil producer and second largest CO2 emitter on the planet.
Antalya also picks up the not exactly flattering witness of the COP30 in Bélem, which closed with a minimum agreement, after the fierce opposition of the petrostates to the inclusion of a roadmap to leave fossil fuels behind. A year later, and in the run-up to COP31, Brazil has retaliated these days by publishing a global itinerary for the progressive elimination of coal, oil and gas, as a guide for countries that want to get on the bandwagon.
Geopolitical tensions
Curiously, the news coincided with the new record set precisely by Brazil (eighth world oil producer) with 6.12 million barrels per day, a true reflection of the ambivalence in the countries that should clear the way. All of this happened a few days after Lula's high-profile re-election, which can boast - of course - of having reduced deforestation in the Amazon by 41.8% in the last year, a figure in the box of hope.
The embryo of the First Conference for the Transition Beyond Fossil Fuels was also conceived in Brazil, held last spring in Santa Marta (Colombia). More than 60 countries, including Spain, decided to create a "coalition of volunteers" to overcome the typical blockages of COPs, where agreements are approved and often diluted by consensus. The creation of this bloc is a reflection of the growing division between petrostates that aspire to prolong the era of fossil fuels and electrostates that aim to accelerate the transition. Geopolitical tensions and the energy crisis, exacerbated this year by the war between the United States and Israel against Iran, have made negotiations even more difficult.
Frictions between the two blocks were evident at the recent technical meeting in Bangkok of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Saudi Arabia and India pressured to force a one-year delay of the seventh IPCC report, which should be concluded and made public in 2028. France and other countries criticized the maneuvers of the "delayed bloc" and recalled the importance of matching the latest scientific assessment with the second global stocktake that will measure collective progress towards climate goals that same year.
The other dividing line, the one that separates industrialized countries and developing countries, remains open due to the financing of climate action (with the collapse of the Langtang Lirung glacier in the Himalayas that left more than 1,400 dead or missing as a tragic reminder). In Bélem it was decided to triple aid for adaptation to extreme climate events in vulnerable countries by 2035, and Antalya is also expected to make progress in this area, as well as in the implementation of the just transition mechanism in local communities.
