Yesterday I spent four hours standing in line just to get into COP31 here in Antalya.
Yes, you heard that right. Four hours.
In case my feelings were unclear
I have attended 29 of the 31 UN climate conferences since this UN traveling show began in the 1990’s, and I can say without hesitation that this one is the most disorganized I’ve ever seen. It is not the first time this has happened. Every time it does, however, it raises in my head an obvious question: If the United Nations struggles to process a few thousand delegates through a security checkpoint in a resort town on the Turkish Riviera, why would we ever let it run the world economy?
Yet that is exactly what these summits keep demanding.
While I was waiting to get inside, COP31 President Murat Kurum opened the summit by declaring the gathering to be an “Implementation COP” and declaring the 1.5°C Paris target “remains our guide.” He called for “turning promises into results”, promoted a global “35-by-35” electrification goal, and demanded that the $300 billion to $1.3 trillion climate finance pipeline finally deliver. UN Climate Change head Simon Stiell added the usual blather of fossil-fuel “cost chaos” and renewable savings.
After 29 of these, I know the globalist script by heart. For three decades the annual UN climate circus has promised implementation and delivered mostly process, press releases, and demands for other people’s money. The 1.5°C target by which average global temperature was to be lowered by 2050 was always more political symbol than scientific tipping point, and successive COPs have quietly walked it back even as they keep invoking it. Meanwhile the real-world energy picture hasn’t budged. More than 80 percent of global energy still comes from fossil fuels, and major economies (notably China and India) and developing countries keep building coal and gas plants because reliable power lifts people out of poverty.
Think we’ll eat better if these young radicals run our farms?
Inside the COP31 venue, theatrics were on prominent display. We came across one group of invigorated protestors railing against modern farming, the same high-yield agriculture that feeds billions of people and keeps food affordable. I couldn’t help but wonder whether they’d wrap up their gig and head to one of Antalya’s lovely seaside restaurants for some nice Turkish wine and a lovely dinner. I suspect the menu won’t be sourced from the pre-industrial farming they’d like to impose on everyone else. WATCH NOW
Not far away, activists from the Climate Action Network (CAN) handed out their “Fossil of the Day” award, this time to the nation of New Zealand. CAN has been running this charade for decades and it has become shopworn; becoming
Fossil of the day goes to New Zealand
a proverbial “fossil” itself. If the activists want anyone outside their own circle to pay attention, the act could use a reboot and a way more intrigue. WATCH NOW
Türkiye’s own numbers make the gap between rhetoric and reality impossible to ignore. Recent 2024 estimates reveal coal supplied roughly 34.7 percent of the country’s electricity and natural gas provided 18.9 percent. That adds up to about 54 percent from fossil fuels, with coal still the single largest source. Hosting an “Implementation COP” built around rapid electrification and the 1.5°C reduction goal while relying so heavily on coal and gas is the definition of climate theater.
At CFACT we have documented this pattern for years. Past summits, including last year’s in Brazil where they chain sawed through the Amazon rainforest to build a highway to accommodate delegates, failed to lock in binding fossil-fuel phase-outs and even stripped references to the 1.5°C target from final texts. The finance pledges keep growing, but the cash on delivery doesn’t. Aggressive net-zero policies have already raised energy costs and damaged competitiveness in Europe and Australia, while China and India keep expanding coal. The United States has rightly stepped outside the Paris framework and focused on energy abundance.
COP31 President Kurum’s call for results will be judged the same way every previous COP has been. The test isn’t the alarmist speeches in Antalya—it’s whether the summit produces tangible action that actually moves the needle. Judging by past summits, it’s time the UN climate bureaucracy cried “uncle” and conceded a simple fact: they’ve failed. Fossil fuels still power Turkey and most of the planet, and the existential climate crisis that was supposed to follow has failed to materialize.
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The post COP31 in Antalya: Same old song, longer lines was first published by the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and is republished here with permission. Please support their efforts.