Two countries with strong global projection, Türkiye and the United States, are experiencing a notable contrast in international climate diplomacy. As the Turkish nation prepares to host the next major UN climate conference, the United States has recorded a historic absence from the most recent negotiations.
Türkiye takes over the headquarters of the next COP in Antalya
The city of Antalya, Turkey, was selected to host the thirty-first Conference of the Parties (COP31), scheduled to take place in November 2026.
The choice of the host nation involved fierce competition, with Turkey and Australia vying for the right to host the event for a period of more than three years.
An agreement unprecedented in three decades of climate conferences was reached, setting Turkey as the host nation and formal chair of the summit, while Australia will lead the substantive discussions.
There will also be a preparatory stage scheduled for a nation located in the Pacific region, an area that has historically suffered from rising ocean levels.
Internal challenges mark the host of COP31
However, the country that will host the summit faces questions, given that Turkey currently stands out as one of the main global emitters of greenhouse gases, driven by a rapidly expanding economy and a resulting increase in emissions.
The nation confirmed the Paris Agreement in 2021, the last member of the G20 to do so, and has set a goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2053. Additionally, it recently enacted its first climate-focused legislation, a move that signals a complex balance between its economic development goals and the environmental commitments the country now makes.
However, in practical analysis, independent reports categorize the Turkish climate plan as “critically insufficient”.
The target established by the nation allows emissions to continue rising until the end of the 2030s, before beginning to reduce, a pace that is considered inconsistent with the stipulations of the Paris Agreement.
One of the reasons for this situation is the intense use of coal: Turkey is the main producer of coal-based electricity in Europe, with this fuel representing a considerable share of the country’s electricity generation, with part of it coming from imports.
At the same time, the government signed agreements to purchase energy from coal-fired plants for an additional period, which could further delay the elimination of this source in the Turkish energy matrix.
“Despite Turkey’s recognized dependence on fossil fuels, especially coal, and climate targets seen as modest by the international community, the trajectory of climate negotiations indicates that significant progress does not always come from nations already aligned with the climate agenda”, details Tatiana Oliveira, International Strategy leader at WWF-Brazil.
On the other hand, relevant advances have been noted: wind and solar energy production in the country already exceeds the global average, and battery storage capacity has seen substantial growth in recent years.
However, Turkey also invests in oil and gas exploration and in a nuclear plant built with Russian collaboration, which, according to experts, increases its external energy dependence instead of reducing it.
The Turkish nation joins a recurring group of climate summit hosts in recent years, including Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, countries marked by heavy dependence on fossil fuels or a history of restrictions on demonstrations, raising concerns from human rights organizations about activists’ freedom of action.
United States registers first absence from UN climate conferences
In the opposite scenario, the United States is going through a significant period in its interaction with global climate diplomacy.
In January 2025, right at the beginning of his administration, President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the Paris Agreement, replicating an action taken by his previous government. The formalization of the departure occurred one year after the initial announcement.
However, the attitude went beyond the mere official withdrawal from the pact. For the first time since the establishment of UN climate conferences in the 1990s, the United States did not send an official delegation to the latest summit, hosted in Belém, Brazil.
Almost all other nations, including those with scarce diplomatic resources, were represented at the meeting, making the absence of the American delegation even more noticeable.
This absence, as revealed, is not an isolated incident. It aligns with a series of internal transformations in the United States, which include cuts in federal initiatives and incentives for clean energy, review of environmental regulations regarding vehicle and industrial emissions, and the closure of the State department responsible for coordinating the American presence in international climate negotiations.
As a result, the nation was effectively left without a specific structure to defend its interests in debates of this nature.
Despite everything, it is essential to highlight that the lack of representation refers to the federal government, and not the entire country.
Several governors and mayors from the United States, united in an active coalition since 2017, attended the event independently, demonstrating that a portion of American society remains committed to the climate agenda, even without the endorsement of the central government in Washington.
Additionally, despite the federal government’s rollback policies, the clean energy sector has continued to expand in the nation for strictly economic reasons: the reduction in the costs of solar panels and battery systems has encouraged new investments, regardless of the White House’s official stance.
Leadership in the fight against climate change transcends mere diplomatic capacity, demanding the delivery of tangible results, financial resources, internal implementation of policies and the ability to form alliances. Thus, no individual country seems able to completely fill the vacuum left by the historic role of the United States, not even the European Union.
Opposing signals in global climate diplomacy
The antagonism between the two nations helps to understand the current scenario of climate diplomacy: on the one hand, a country ready to host the next major conference, but still very dependent on coal and other fossil fuels; on the other, the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet, which chose to formally dissociate itself from international discussions on the issue.
Meanwhile, analysts indicate that the departure of the United States creates an opportunity for other nations, such as China, which has directed large investments to clean energy technologies, to ascend to a leading role in formulating global guidelines and standards for the energy transition in the coming years.
The conference in Antalya, called COP31, will represent the next stage of these discussions and will assess the capacity of countries to make effective commitments to end fossil fuels, an issue that remained unresolved at the previous summit, held in Belém.
“In a progressively more polarized global scenario, the ability to negotiate and forge convergences may be more crucial than at any other time”, adds Oliveira.