The United States Is Skipping COP31 in Turkey

World leaders including Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan set out their climate priorities in speeches at COP31 in Turkey on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Erdogan said emissions in 2025 reached all-time highs, heat records keep shattering, and the last four years were the hottest ever. He described fossil fuel interests as making a killing while killing the planet, and called climate disasters a pounding force on lives, livelihoods, and economies worldwide.

Erdogan warned that the momentum from COP30 a year earlier had dropped off, saying climate change disappeared from the speeches and documents of global leadership. In the G7 and G20, he said, the concern turned into silence, with leaders talking more about weapons and tariffs than the survival of future generations. He called sabotage of a climate regime a destruction of the multilateral system at its best.

He urged developed countries to take the lead in emission reduction and honour climate finance commitments, saying finance must be new, additional, predictable, and grant-based. He said countries cannot be expected to borrow their way out of a crisis they did little to create, and that resilience must not come at the cost of unsustainable debt. He backed the 35-by-35 Global Electrification Pledge and encouraged others to join.

The United Nations chief also addressed the conference. The New York Times reported that António Guterres implored climate ambassadors to fight harder, rousing them at COP31. Bloomberg reported that Guterres called for windfall taxes on what he described as unjustifiable energy profits.

The Guardian published an explainer asking how far off target the world is on climate goals. National Catholic Reporter covered Catholic groups calling for nations to advance climate funding and fossil fuel phaseout at COP31. A second Reuters story described world leaders setting out clashing priorities as the conference turned to negotiations.

The sources do not state that the United States is skipping COP31, nor do they identify which countries attended or were absent. No schedule for upcoming sessions or expected outcomes was provided in the material.