From Promises to Plans: COP31 Update #2
After a slow start on gridlocked roads, day two turned to the practical work: fossil fuel roadmaps, a push to electrify, and early warnings that reach people in time.
COP31’s second day was its Energy and Transport Day, and the irony was hard to miss. For a second morning, the roads to the venue jammed and shuttle buses and trams overflowed. Some participants spent close to five hours getting from their accommodation to the conference center, a trip the UN lists at 30 to 60 minutes, and early events had to be rescheduled.
Once inside, the day turned to the practical question of how. How do countries move away from fossil fuels? How does a forecast become action before a disaster arrives? Our team, in Antalya and online, covered a dozen sessions, from negotiators’ briefings to Indigenous youth sharing circles. Here are three highlights from the day and why they matter for United Methodists far from Antalya.
From pledge to roadmap
Nearly three years after countries agreed in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels, Tuesday’s question was how. COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago presented Brazil’s new global roadmap for that transition to a packed plenary. It invites countries to draw up national plans for clean energy systems by 2028, with the main cuts to coal, oil and gas coming after 2031. UN Secretary-General António Guterres challenged every country to show, by the 2028 Global Stocktake, what it has done to cut fossil fuel use or production and what it will do next.
The limits are real. The roadmap is voluntary, and some fossil fuel producers are expected to resist any mention of it in the summit’s final decision. The hosts face questions of their own: this week Türkiye’s president hailed new oil production in the Gabar mountains, and co-president Australia has drawn criticism for expanding coal and gas.
A deficit of willpower
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called the transition away from fossil fuels the central discussion of this summit, since current policies put the world on track for 2.8°C of warming. Had countries kept every promise made at previous COPs in Glasgow, Sharm el-Sheikh and Dubai, he noted, warming would be held to about 1.7°C. What is missing, he said, is not technology but “willpower to embrace the future,” and moral appeals alone will not close that gap; economics and the energy market must.
Above all, he argued for cooperation. “No one country, not the largest, not the richest, not the most powerful, can do the job we have to do alone,” he said. “The atmosphere doesn’t recognize the borders we do.” And, he added, “No country can block the sun from shining.”
Acting before the storm
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) told COP31 that this year’s El Niño is expected to be the strongest since at least 1950, with a possible peak of 3.8°C above normal against the 2015–16 record of 2.6°C. Its forecasters put the chance of the event lasting through February 2027 at nearly 100%. WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said the science can predict more rain and heat but not exactly where. What El Niño does to people depends on whether warnings arrive, are understood, and lead to action.
That chain is stronger than it was a decade ago. According to the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA), in 2015 it had nothing pre-positioned for climate risks and made its first El Niño payout in November. This year it released funds in March and has about $170 million ready for countries facing drought and storms. The World Food Programme said it now runs 28 forecast-based programs reaching 1.5 million people.
The gaps remain large. A forecast in a developing country is about as reliable one day out as a forecast in a wealthy country seven days out. Less than 10% of predictable hazards are funded in advance.
At the Baku High-Level Dialogue on Adaptation, IPCC Working Group II co-chair Bart van den Hurk made the same point: “A warning cannot protect people unless it’s being received, being trusted, and also gives the opportunities to respond.”
Knowledge holders, not only the vulnerable
At the annual youth roundtable of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform, young people from Indigenous communities around the world described how their knowledge carries climate action. Luke Rehmat of the Kalasha people of Pakistan, whose valleys flooded in 2010, 2015 and 2022, said Indigenous knowledge is climate knowledge. He asked that Indigenous Peoples be treated as knowledge holders, rights holders and decision makers, not only as vulnerable populations.
Alexis Archambault of the Standing Rock Lakota, displaced in the past by dam flooding on the Missouri River, described elders and youth working together to plant native species and bring back the buffalo.
Where the church comes in
The day also asked the church to listen: to Indigenous young people who carry knowledge of land, water and seasons, and to women and girls whose burdens grow with every drought. United Methodists in the Philippines and across Africa are preparing for this El Niño now. Congregations in Europe and the United States can press their governments on the finance, forecasting and fossil fuel plans that will decide how severe it becomes.
Read the full report for more from our team in Antalya and online. Download PDF Ver. Download WORD Ver.
Follow our updates throughout COP31, share them with your congregation, and hold in prayer the communities preparing for what this El Niño will bring.
