ANTALYA: UN chief Antonio Guterres on Tuesday urged nations at COP31 to plan for a future without fossil fuels, even as summit hosts Turkiye celebrated the discovery of new oil reserves. Fossil fuels took centre stage at the UN climate summit where Turkiye is seeking pledges to electrify the global economy rather than concrete new commitments to tackle coal, oil and gas.

Turkiye’s “electrification” push comes as scientists warned that emissions from burning fossil fuels — the primary driver of climate change — were projected to remain near-record highs for another year. Guterres said “an accelerated transition away from fossil fuels is fundamental” to rein in global temperature rises on track to blow past the 1.5C target in a matter of years. “Let’s be clear: fossil fuels are not only driving the climate crisis.

Dependence on them carries a steep economic and security price as the crisis in the Middle East has laid bare,” he said. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan struck a different note on Monday, hailing the discovery of two oil fields — potentially containing 135 million barrels of crude — as “good news”.

The contrast underscored a central challenge facing countries deadlocked over how quickly the world should move away from polluting fuels to cleaner forms of energy. Since agreeing in 2023 for the first time to transition away from fossil fuels, nations have struggled to advance that goal at the annual COP conferences. At last year’s COP30 in Brazil, fossil fuels were not explicitly mentioned by name in the final agreement.

No major fossil fuel breakthrough is expected either from this year’s negotiations between nearly 200 nations, which are being hosted by Turkiye but chaired by Australia, itself a major coal exporter. “Expectations are low — that’s just a reflection of reality,” the European Union’s climate envoy Wopke Hoekstra said.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2026