Big polluters need to move faster to wean themselves off fossil fuels and rely less on expensive and underperforming technologies, the International Energy Agency warned in its latest net zero assessment.
The influential energy watchdog has downgraded the role of technofixes such as carbon capture and hydrogen in meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. As their development is failing to live up to expectations – the IEA argues – countries should instead focus on the “most cost-effective” solutions, like ramping up renewables, energy efficiency and electrification.
The updated scenarios give less cover to the oil and gas industry and petrostates to promote these technologies for prolonging the use of fossil fuels.
“Removing carbon from the atmosphere is very costly. We must do everything possible to stop putting it there in the first place,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol in a statement.
The IEA is also calling on all countries to bring forward their net zero plans.
It says rich nations should reach net zero emissions by 2045 under an “equitable pathway” that sees historical polluters take the lead. Only a handful of European countries, including Germany, are aiming to achieve that target.
Carbon capture hype
The report is the first update to the road map for the energy sector to reach net zero by 2050 debuted by the IEA in 2021. That landmark report relayed a stark message to the fossil fuel industry: development of oil, gas, and coal must stop to remain within acceptable global warming thresholds.
Since then, as discussions around the possibility of phasing out fossil fuels heated up, the sector has increasingly taken shelter behind technofixes.
Countries that produce or rely on fossil fuels particularly advocate the use of carbon capture and storage (CCS) to trap their emissions, rather than ending the use of such fuels completely. This debate is expected to take centre stage at the Cop28 climate summit in November.
‘Unmet expectations’
The latest IEA assessment pours cold water on such a notion. It says the history of CCS “has largely been one of unmet expectations”, marked by slow progress and flat deployment. Only 0.1% of total annual energy sector emissions are currently captured in this way.
Catherine Abreu from the campaign group Destination Zero told Climate Home News it makes sense that models see a reduced role for these technologies. “The results of the small, tremendously expensive CCS projects that already exist make it clear that these projects are just about extracting more fossil fuels, not about cutting climate pollution,” she said.
In its new forecasts, the Paris-based agency has slashed the contribution of CCS to emission reductions in the power sector by around 40% compared to its 2021 scenario. But it can reduce or eliminate emissions in areas where other options are limited, such as heavy industries, the IEA added.
Hydrogen ‘problem’
The agency has also taken aim at hydrogen, describing it as “more of a climate problem than a climate solution” today. While demand for hydrogen has been rising, the overwhelming majority of it has been met with polluting production processes, mostly involving gas.
The IEA sees a diminished potential for hydrogen to decarbonise long-distance transport and iron and steel production, and only if it comes from “low-emission” sources such as renewables.
“Hydrogen was once considered a ‘wonderfuel’,” said Dave Jones from energy think tank Ember. “Now reality has hit home and there has been a real change in understanding of its limited uses.”
While CCS and hydrogen are underperforming expectations, the IEA keeps revising its projections for solar power and electric vehicles upwards. Cheaper renewables and stronger electrification prospects make them more appealing and viable options to reach net zero by 2050.
The IEA report comes at a time of rising tensions with oil producers. Two weeks ago Opec, the cartel of oil-producing nations, accused the agency of creating “dangerous” risks to energy security by stoking calls to end investment in fossil fuel projects.
Net zero acceleration
IEA’s Birol said “the pathway to 1.5C has narrowed in the past two years, but clean energy technologies are keeping it open”. He urged stronger international cooperation, ambition and implementation of climate plans.
The IEA’s roadmap to net zero in 2050
While calling on all governments to raise their net zero targets, the report offers a template for differentiated responsibilities around the world.
Advanced economies take the lead and reach net zero emissions by around 2045 in the IEA scenario. Germany is the only G20 country to have pledged such a target. The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada are all aiming to get to that level by 2050.
China should get to net zero by 2050, according to the agency, bringing its plans forward by ten years. Poorer developing economies get there “well after” 2050 in this scenario.
Thomas Hale, professor of global public policy at Oxford University, said it was important for the IEA to underline the equity implications of getting the world to net zero by 2050.
“The fundamental question of who goes fastest and who follows is a challenge at the heart of current global climate politics,” he added. “The report shows governments there is a really attractive and achievable pathway to get there.”
He expected the IEA recommendations to be considered by governments when they update their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement by 2025.
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New IEA net zero report leaves big polluters less room to hide
Özgür Özel is the leader of Turkey’s main opposition “New Party” and a member of parliament from Manisa.
The world is running out of time to deliver on the Paris Agreement. The UN Environment Programme’s latest Emissions Gap Report concludes that the chance of keeping warming below 1.5C without overshooting it is gone. Even if every country delivers its current national pledges, the planet is heading for about 2.6C of warming this century.
This is the backdrop as governments and their leaders gather in Antalya for COP31, ten years after the Paris Agreement took effect. Turkey lies in the Mediterranean, one of the regions most exposed to climate change, and hosting the summit is a real opportunity.
It is also a responsibility, and that responsibility begins at home. The world does not lack targets. What it has lacked – almost everywhere – is delivery. If Antalya is remembered for anything, it should be for shifting the focus from what countries promise to what they actually do.
For many people in Turkey, the climate crisis is already part of daily life. In 2021, forests in Manavgat, a district of Antalya, burned for more than a week. Last year, wildfires forced more than 50,000 people from their homes around the western coast city of Izmir. This October, Istanbul had its heaviest rainfall in more than 80 years, with the floods killing at least eight people.
COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit?
Electrification, the fossil fuel transition, adaptation to rising impacts, climate science and trade are key themes as governments gather for COP31 in TürkiyeBrazil’s fossil fuel roadmap sketches out first global timetable
The COP30 presidency’s voluntary timetable asks countries to plan first, then build up clean energy – only turning to oil and gas supplies from 2031
Measurable outcomes
Two weeks of climate negotiations cannot deliver everything that is needed to resolve the crisis, but COP31 can push for a few things that can be measured. The first is a voluntary fossil-fuel transition roadmap, with national milestones for 2030 and 2035 reported in the same format every year.
The second is a stronger commitment to protecting forests, with progress tracked over time. The third is yearly reporting on progress towards the agreed $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance by 2035, backed by a financial roadmap.
On adaptation, the indicators agreed in Belém should become funded national plans. By COP32, we should be able to see how many countries have an adaptation plan and the financial commitment behind each one.
Regional resilience partnership
The summit also has an unusual shape. Turkey hosts, Australia leads the negotiations, and the Pacific island nations play a central role. Climate diplomacy now sits at the centre of energy security, trade and development, and Turkey, which bridges developed and developing economies, is well placed to help build consensus between them. The lasting value of its presidency will depend on the practical partnerships it leaves behind.
One such partnership could connect two very different regions. On a map, the Mediterranean and the Pacific seem to have little in common, but their problems look similar: eroding coastlines, salt creeping into aquifers, failing harvests, fishing towns with fewer fish.
Turkey and Australia could launch a Mediterranean–Pacific Climate Resilience Partnership, linking coastal cities, scientists, institutions including development banks and island governments. It does not need a new bureaucracy. It can start with a few projects: shared satellite data and early-warning systems, better coastal flood defences, and trials of water-saving farming in the communities most at risk. What matters is visible results on the ground, not a ceremony.
Turkey’s track record
Turkey does have progress to point to. It has committed to net zero by 2053, and its solar and wind capacity has grown fast. The sunshine, the wind and the industrial base are all there. But the long-term direction of the energy mix is still unclear.
Turkey also signed the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use at COP26, pledging to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030. With four years left, COP31 is a chance to show how that promise will be kept.
COP30 roadmap says faster use of existing tools can halt forest loss by 2030
And while the summit celebrates zero waste, Turkey took in more than half a million tons of European plastic waste last year, much of it bound for Mersin and Adana. On November 21, the day after COP31 closes, an EU ban on plastic-waste exports to non-OECD countries takes effect. Turkey, as an OECD member, is exempt. That should worry us more than it seems to.
None of this will carry much weight unless Turkey’s own record holds up. A leadership at odds with its own environment and its own citizens will struggle to inspire global confidence in its commitment to protecting the planet.
Threat to local climate action
Cities are where adaptation happens. Water, flood protection, waste and urban planning fall largely to municipalities. That is why the imprisonment and removal of more than 50 elected opposition mayors, including the mayor of Istanbul, matter for environment and climate policy, as well as for democracy.
When local leadership is disrupted, investment plans stall and work on flood defences and water supplies loses continuity. As a result, local governments are left paralysed.
Comment: From Australia to Chile, our cities are driving a green investment boom
Inconsistent policymaking when it comes to the environment and climate deepens the problem in Turkey as it does in other countries. A few practical steps would make a real difference.
Set out a gradual, well-planned energy transition. Stop new construction in streambeds and drinking-water basins and put zoning maps online. Inspect every imported plastic shipment and cap total imports. Hold public hearings on environmental impact assessments before permits are issued, not after. And publish an independently audited climate scorecard each year covering emissions, renewables capacity, forest loss and adaptation spending.
This could set an example beyond Turkey. Many emerging economies are trying to cut emissions while protecting jobs and keeping industry competitive. Digital tools and artificial intelligence are already available to help forecast wildfire risk, reduce grid losses and track water use.
With the 1.5C limit now set to be breached, Antalya’s success will be measured by the greenhouse gases avoided, the investments delivered and the forests still standing in the years that follow. It is our responsibility to watch closely and see whether those commitments are delivered, transparently and in line with international standards.
The post Turkey must make COP31 a turning point for global climate action appeared first on Climate Home News.
Turkey must make COP31 a turning point for global climate action
As oil companies pull out of Argentina’s oil heartland in the Patagonian province of Chubut, workers and communities are struggling to secure their future, with little say in the decisions being made about it.
“The impacted are fragmented, the exploiters organised,” said José Glinski, a member of parliament from the province.
In Comodoro Rivadavia, where Argentina’s oil industry began in 1907, those words carry particular weight. For nearly 120 years, oil has shaped the city’s economy and that of Chubut province, which helped power Argentina for decades. Now the companies that built their fortunes there are shifting their investments elsewhere, threatening an economy that has depended on oil for generations.
Argentina’s national oil company, YPF, whose roots lie in Comodoro Rivadavia, is selling off its mature oilfields in the region to concentrate investment in the shale oil and gas reserves of Vaca Muerta, further north. According to Glinski, around 10,000 direct jobs have gone in Chubut, and unemployment has climbed from 2% to 10% in a single year.
“And this while all remaining companies have kept extremely high levels of profit,” he said.
COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit?
Glinski blames government policy as much as the companies. “Companies are choosing to leave and the government lets them do so, while weakening tax and environmental regulations, leaving the city without the necessary income to organise the transition.”
Nobody has yet worked out who will clean up the old fields and more than 6,000 wells, look after the workers who remain, or pay for whatever comes next.
Comodoro Rivadavia is not alone. From Mejillones and Tocopilla in Chile to La Guajira in Colombia and Appalachia in the United States, from Scotland to Mpumalanga in South Africa and East Kalimantan in Indonesia, places built around fossil fuels for generations face some version of the same problem. As investment moves elsewhere, plans to protect workers, support communities and repair damaged land often lag far behind, if they exist at all.
Building an economy beyond fossil fuels
In Comodoro, as locals call the city, the community has not been passively waiting for oil to run out.
“We have looked into multiple alternatives for the territory, including building on geothermal capacity, an agricultural programme that could reinforce food security and focus on cultures that are not too water dependent, and exploring also aquaculture built on local species,” explained Ruben Zárate, who heads Comodoro Conocimiento, a public agency created by the municipality to develop economic opportunities. “The only alternative is economic diversification.”
But having ideas is one thing. Finding the money and securing the political support to put them into practice is another. In many countries, decisions that shape a region’s economy are made in the capital or in company boardrooms, and local authorities have little say, and few resources, when a major employer pulls out.
Glinski points to deals struck at the national level that leave communities without a meaningful say in decisions affecting their future.
“Some of the barriers relate to the absence of regulation of private actors which have negotiated conditions at the national level that prevent provinces or territories from capturing benefits that could be useful to fund the transition,” he said. “Comodoro had no voice in these deals.”
One example is Argentina’s Large Investment Incentive Regime, known as RIGI, which offers substantial tax benefits and regulatory guarantees to major investors. Argentina’s Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN) has warned that this regime could also give large projects preferential access to water and energy at the expense of local communities and businesses, making it harder for regions to diversify their economies.
At root, it’s a question of power: who controls the money and the decisions, and whether the people who kept these industries running for generations have any control over what comes next.
“Comodoro, like most territories that developed around fossil fuels, is heavily dependent. Everyone knew the oil business would end, but none planned for it,” said Antonella Risso, a climate expert and community member. “Comodoro deserves a bright future. Its people have the capacity to chart a future for its next hundred years – a real Just Transition”.
What COP31 could do
Last year in Belém, governments agreed to develop a Just Transition Mechanism. At COP31 in Antalya they will negotiate how it should work, and civil society is pushing for a strong Belém-Antalya Mechanism (BAM) that can help channel resources for action on the ground.
Camila Mercure, a climate policy officer with FARN and a coordinator of CAN’s Just Transition working group, said, “For a city like Comodoro Rivadavia, the BAM could mean support to develop diversification plans, assess viable alternatives, and access public, grant-based finance to put them into practice.”
“Workers and communities must have a meaningful role in shaping these plans, building on local knowledge and priorities. The aim should be to create decent livelihoods beyond fossil fuels and avoid alternatives that reproduce the same economic dependence, inequalities and environmental harm,” she said.
Why COP31 needs to start talking about just transition finance
The BAM could also put regions in touch with each other. Officials in Patagonia, northern Chile, Mpumalanga or East Kalimantan are wrestling with many of the same questions, and sharing what has worked would spare them from starting from scratch.
Then there are the companies. Fossil fuel producers should not be able to walk away from their workers, their environmental obligations and the towns that depended on them. The BAM could help regions share experiences and develop ways to hold companies accountable, ensuring they plan ahead and pay their fair share of the transition costs.
In Comodoro Rivadavia, the transition has already begun, without the community’s consent and with little support. COP31 is a chance to help places like it plan ahead, before the last company leaves rather than after.
The post When the oil companies leave, who pays? appeared first on Climate Home News.
https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/11/05/when-the-oil-companies-leave-who-pays/
The centrepiece of every UN climate summit is for countries to negotiate the wording of a large number of legal agreements – and COP31 in the Turkish city of Antalya is no different.
These texts are hashed out behind closed doors in the “blue zone” at the COP, where diplomats from nearly 200 nations – not including the US – will be haggling over each individual verb.
Over the course of the two-week summit, negotiators will be trying to reach consensus on more than 100 separate agreements – but, first, they must agree which issues are on the agenda.
The complexity of this process can make it challenging to keep track of what countries are fighting about and how negotiations are progressing.
Carbon Brief’s real-time text tracker, below, offers a helping hand by decoding the agenda and keeping a searchable record of every document for each part of the negotiations.
The first column of the interactive tracker lists the topic of each agenda item, with further columns including dates, page counts and links to the original PDFs.
The table is searchable via the interactive text box and can be sorted using the arrow icons.
This year’s talks come with a twist: Turkey holds the presidency and is hosting COP31, but Australia is jointly running the show as “president of negotiations”.
The pair have already announced their intention to produce a “cover text” – an overarching political document summarising key negotiated outcomes, along with issues not on the official agenda.
This could include a recognition that warming is set to “overshoot” the 1.5C limit and the impacts this is already causing. It may also include potential solutions, such as the Turkish presidency’s “electrification” target, for 35% of global final energy to come from electricity by 2035.
While the summit is not seen as a banner year for the negotiations, falling half-way between two “global stocktakes” of progress, there are still plenty of major topics up for discussion.
These include efforts to finalise the “global goal on adaptation” and whether to continue a contested process on how to cut emissions, known as the “mitigation work programme”.
Negotiators will also be trying to agree on the details of a new “just transition mechanism”, also referred to as the “Belém-Antalya mechanism for global just transitions” (BAM).
While most of the items on the agenda are agreed in advance, parties can suggest late additions. These must be signed off before negotiations can begin, often resulting in an “agenda fight”.
COP30 agreed to put two new items on the agenda for future summits.
These are the provision of climate finance by developed countries, under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and making global “finance flows” consistent with the treaty, under Article 2.1c.
Ahead of COP31, the African group of nations filed a request to add climate-related trade tariffs to the agenda. COP30 had agreed to annual “dialogues” on this matter at the Bonn climate talks.
The African group also wants further items added, on tripling adaptation finance and on funding for the Green Climate Fund, a flagship UN body designed to support climate action.
Ahead of the opening of the summit, Carbon Brief’s text tracker counts 104 substantive items on the agenda, not including procedural matters, such as the election of COP officials.
The figure below illustrates the status of the COP31 negotiations overall, in a traffic-light format. Each agenda item is colour-coded according to its current status.