Cop31 will expose the conflicts and contradictions of the world’s fossil fuel reliance

The move to clean electricity will form the focus of the climate summit, which begins next week in coal-obsessed Turkey. The outlook doesn’t look good • Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Holding a climate conference under the presidency of one coal-obs

The move to clean electricity will form the focus of the climate summit, which begins next week in coal-obsessed Turkey. The outlook doesn’t look good • Don’t get Down to Earth delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Holding a climate conference under the presidency of one coal-obsessed country might be regarded as a misfortune for the planet – sharing it between two starts to look provocative.

But at this year’s Cop31 UN climate summit in Antalya, coal exporter Australia and coal consumer Turkey will be trying to shift the focus away from dirty fossil fuels and towards clean electricity, with a target on the table to meet 35% of final energy demand from electricity by 2035. Will they succeed? The geopolitical outlook for Cop31 is worse than for almost any recent “conference of the parties” under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

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