As COP31 opens in Türkiye, the world takes stock
With global talks under way and emissions still rising, nations confront the widening gap between pledges and action.
The world's nations gathered in Türkiye as the COP31 United Nations climate summit opened, convening against a backdrop of record global temperatures, mounting disasters and a persistent, widening gap between the pledges countries have made and the action science says is required to avert the worst of climate change.
The summit, hosted this year in Türkiye following a drawn-out contest over who would stage it, brings together nearly 200 countries to assess progress, strengthen commitments and grapple with the perennial sticking points of climate finance, the transition away from fossil fuels, and support for the nations most vulnerable to a warming world.
The talks unfold at a difficult moment. Global emissions have yet to decisively peak, the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius hangs by a thread, and the retreat of the United States from international climate cooperation has complicated the diplomatic landscape, placing greater weight on other major players.
Yet there are also grounds for cautious hope. Clean energy continues its remarkable ascent, with solar and battery storage deployed at record rates and their costs still falling, and the economic logic of the transition grows stronger each year, carrying momentum even where political will falters.
As negotiators settle in for days of hard bargaining, the summit offers a moment to take stock: of a planet continuing to warm, of the extremes that warming is fuelling, and of the choices that will determine whether the world can bend the curve of emissions in time. The outcome, as ever, will hinge on whether fine words can at last be matched by action at the scale the moment demands.