COP31 Deal Wish List Includes Fossil Fuel Transition

COP31 leaders released on Friday a wish list of priorities from countries to potentially include in a final decision at the UN climate talks, including the contentious transition away from fossil fuels.

Australia, which is steering the negotiations in a co-hosting arrangement with Turkey, has pushed for the climate conference to produce a “cover decision” — an overarching political agreement negotiated by consensus.

As the two-week conference approaches its midway point, the Australian team published a “Summary of Reflections” expressed by countries at the talks in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya.

The list — which does not name any nation — includes several issues that have divided wealthy, developing and oil-rich countries at every climate gathering over the years.

“There’s all kinds of signals being sent here about what could be in the cover decision,” Alden Meyer, an expert at the climate think tank E3G, told AFP.

“The big question is what can survive that test of opposition by different groups of countries,” he said.

Chief among them is the “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems”, which was already agreed in a hard-fought decision at the COP28 summit in Dubai in 2023.

But explicit mentions of the fossil fuel transition were left out of the final decisions at COP29 in Azerbaijan and COP30 in Brazil, with oil-producing countries accused of blocking the wording.

Other items on the COP31 wish list include the tripling of adaptation finance — funds that developed countries provide to help poorer nations improve their infrastructure to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

The European Union has warned that there would be no political will for extra funding pledges at COP31.

With the world expected to exceed the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the list includes a call to limit the “magnitude and duration” of the “overshoot”.

Some countries also proposed a reference to the “central role” of the United Nations’ climate science panel, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Many of the IPCC’s nearly 200 member countries want its next major report out in time for a crucial UN climate summit in 2028.

But some countries, including Saudi Arabia, India and China, have argued that more time is needed to incorporate science and data from developing nations and have said the new report should be delayed until 2029.

A first draft text of the COP31 deal could be published on Monday.

Meyer said the Australian negotiating team has “to be very careful because there are challengers to the legitimacy of the entire exercise”.

He said some countries, including Russia and the Arab Group, say “there is no mandate” for a cover decision.

The COP31 conference is scheduled to end on November 20, but climate talks often run into overtime.