Yes, the COP climate talks are far from perfect. But they still hold the power for change

This week, around 80 world leaders – including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – will descend on the coastal Turkish city of Antalya for the annual United Nations climate summit, COP31. For the first time, the summit duties will be shared; Turkey will play host, while Australia leads negotiations. At home, these national leaders have no shortage of issues to contend with: the challenges of AI, major wars and declining trust in democracy. Yet looming over all of them is the existential threat posed by a heating planet. Climate change is a truly global challenge. Greenhouse gases have no respect for national boundaries, and the devastating impacts are being felt everywhere. We don’t have a world government, but we do have processes of international diplomacy to hammer out shared commitments. This is how the world is trying to deal with the climate crisis. It can be easy to be pessimistic, but COP31 can still deliver real progress. In Antalya, countries will consider a global electrification target to hasten the shift from coal, oil and gas toward clean electricity. If agreement can be found, this will be a major step forward. Murat Kurum (L), Turkey’s Minister of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change, and Chris Bowen, Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy, at a joint press conference during the Pacific pre-COP31 Summit in Fiji in October. Saeed Khan/Getty Remind me, what is a COP? When scientific consensus emerged on global warming in the 1980s, countries negotiated and signed a new framework on climate change in Rio De Janeiro in 1992. Since then, diplomats and negotiators have met annually for the UN’s Conference of Parties (COP) to discuss how to address dangerous human-made climate change. These talks have become huge, attended by tens of thousands of delegates every year. This year, the 31st COP is being held in Antalya, Turkey. After three decades of climate talks, countries are turning the tide on emissions. Many are transitioning away from fossil fuels, if not at the speed required. Overall, global emissions held roughly flat in 2025, though lower wildfire and land-use emissions masked continued growth from fossil fuels. Yes, the annual UN climate talks are beset by challenges. The United States has withdrawn completely. Countries are not on track to limit warming to agreed levels. Governments can’t even agree when to release the next report on global warming to guide negotiations. In some ways it’s a miracle these talks achieve anything. Agreements must be reached by consensus and endorsed by 190-plus countries, from petro-states in the Middle East to vulnerable island nations in the Pacific. Consensus is both strength and weakness. When agreements are reached, they have great legitimacy. The 2015 Paris Agreement came after two decades of hard-fought negotiations. The agreement was a monumental achievement. But consensus also means COP decisions tend to be “lowest-common-denominator” outcomes, representing incremental progress. Again and again, politics and diplomacy fall short of what the science says is required. Still, if we take a long view, we can see the UN climate talks have helped avoid the most catastrophic global warming and are transforming economies. A demonstrator holds a banner showing the 1.5°C mark, as demonstrators march past the Reichstag building in Berlin, Germany, in April to protest for renewable energies. The UN has confirmed the world will overshoot 1.5°C in the next few years. Photo by Omer Messinger/Getty Images How the Paris Agreement is working At the heart of the Paris Agreement is the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C above the long-term average. This requires the global economy to get to net-zero emissions by the middle of this century. To get there, countries agreed to set emissions targets and increase these every five years. While these targets are slowly cutting emissions and limiting warming they are still clearly insufficient. Before the Paris Agreement, the world was on track for a cataclysmic 4°C degrees of warming this century. The first wave of emissions targets brought this below 3°C. The 2025 round of targets suggests countries may limit warming to 2.6°C. Every fraction of a degree matters. With more ambitious policies, we could theoretically still peak warming at 1.8C and return below 1.5°C later this century through investment in carbon dioxide removal. However, this would take a radical step-change in ambition. Since Paris, more than 130 countries have set long-term targets to achieve net-zero emissions. Countries have begun to signal the end of the fossil fuel era. At COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, countries agreed to “phase down coal”. At COP28 in Dubai in 2023 they agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels”. The task now is to make good on these promises. Taken together, COP commitments act as a market signal. This year, global investment in clean energy hit A$3.2 trillion – twice as much as investment in coal, oil and gas. Renewables also overtook coal as the world’s biggest source of electricity. A new age of electricity For COP31, there is a push for an electrification target of “35 by 35”. Both Turkey and Australia are pressing for a global commitment to increase the share of the energy delivered to consumers by electricity, from just over 20% today to 35% by 2035. It sounds wonkish, but could usher in a new age of electricity. A shift to electric vehicles, electric heating and cooling, and modernised heavy industry will cut emissions while slashing global fossil fuel import bills by $720 billion each year. An electrification target may also be easier to land than agreement to phase out fossil fuels. Ironically, given his support for the oil industry, US president Donald Trump has made perhaps the clearest case for electrification. The US war on Iran has triggered the largest disruption of oil supply in history. Demand for clean energy technologies is surging as countries seek alternatives to volatile fossil fuel imports. The exact form of an electrification target at COP31 will be subject to intense negotiations. Australian climate minister Chris Bowen will have his task cut out for him as chief negotiator. In itself, COP31 can’t deliver a silver bullet for climate action. But if it reinforces international cooperation and moves the dial forward on global electrification, hope remains.