Turkish officials in talks for the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) sought to weaken language on climate change in several draft resolutions, annotated documents seen by Climate Home News show.
Often working alongside Saudi Arabia, Türkiye – host of COP31 next year – pushed to dilute wording on the climate crisis, the science of melting glaciers, and the role of young and Indigenous people, as well as on support for developing nations, in texts being prepared for approval in Nairobi this week. The final versions are still being worked out.
When asked about the issue by Climate Home News, a UN official close to the negotiations said that “certain countries” that don’t want climate change to be mentioned are now “more emboldened than they were ever before to come forward and protect their national interests”.
Türkiye’s actions have raised concern in particular. “It’s rather surprising,” said Öykü Senlen Gundogan, an analyst at think-tank E3G. “Senior Turkish politicians have often called climate change a crisis, and Türkiye is among the countries most exposed to its impacts.”
Türkiye will host COP31 in the city of Antalya in November 2026 and the meeting is expected to be presided over by Turkish environment minister Murat Kurum, but Australia’s Chris Bowen will lead the negotiations.
As host, “Türkiye will be expected to lead by example and ensure its positions are consistent with the ambition it asks of others,” Senlen said.
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Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, said Türkiye’s moves “look like denial of climate science and of the need for action. This is the last thing the world needs from a COP host.”
Hare noted that Türkiye’s national climate plan is considered “critically insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker – its lowest ranking which is shared by just a handful of countries.
“Instead of messing with the science, Türkiye needs to focus on strengthening its climate policies and implementation so it can be a forward-looking host of COP31, helping the world deal with the climate crisis that everyone else seems to recognise,” he told Climate Home News.
The Turkish government did not respond to a request for comment.
Push to weaken UNEA resolutions
The UNEA, which takes place every two years in the Kenyan capital, allows governments to propose and amend resolutions on environmental issues ranging this year from coral reefs to critical minerals and AI.
This time around, Saudi Arabia – often joined by Russia, Iran and Türkiye – tried to water down several texts, according to annotated drafts seen by Climate Home News. The US has not engaged, calling the UNEA “woke climate change theater”.
In a Fiji-sponsored resolution on coral reefs, Saudi Arabia proposed describing climate change and ocean acidification as “challenges” rather than “threats”.
The EU, for its part, wanted a reference in this resolution to “escalating challenges related to the climate crisis”, but Türkiye and Saudi Arabia suggested “challenges relating to the climate”.
Glacier science downplayed
In a Tajikistan-sponsored motion on preserving glaciers and the wider cryosphere, Türkiye opposed saying that “greater emphasis should be placed” on enhancing scientific work and forecasting of changes, with this information integrated into decision-making. Türkiye proposed just “recognizing the importance” of this work while Saudi Arabia objected to the whole reference to it.
Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran sought to delete all or part of a sentence recognising that accelerated retreat and melting of the cryosphere – which includes glaciers – is caused by climate change.
Saudi Arabia also tried to weaken a reference to the UN’s goal to get everyone on Earth covered by early warning systems for climate disasters by 2027, changing “reaffirming” that goal to simply “recalling” it.
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In several resolutions, Türkiye sought to remove or narrow references to Indigenous Peoples. Tajikistan proposed calling their role “crucial” and their knowledge “vital”. Türkiye wanted both adjectives deleted, and in another case suggested inserting “where applicable”.
Türkiye and Saudi Arabia attempted to downplay the role of young people too. The title of a Sri Lankan motion proposed enhancing their “meaningful participation” in “environmental governance”. Türkiye proposed changing “participation” to “involvement” and Saudi Arabia wanted to replace “governance” with “events”.
No approval for policy summary of key report
As UNEA opened on Monday, UN officials urged government delegates to show flexibility. UN Environment Programme head Inger Andersen said the world is in turbulent geopolitical waters, which adds “stresses and strains to the multilateral processes” and called on nations to step down “from the ramparts of individual positions to meet on common ground”.
But governments have already proven unable to approve a “summary for policymakers” of the UN’s seventh Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7) report, which outlines the financial costs of environmental degradation and the benefits of making the economy more environmentally-friendly.
In response to a question by Climate Home News, report co-chair and scientist Robert Watson said at a press conference ahead of its release that governments had been divided on issues around fossil fuels, plastics, a circular economy and conflict.
He told the BBC that a small number of countries – including the US, which disagreed with much of the content – “basically just hijacked the process” at an October meeting, meaning the document could not be approved as it requires consensus.
Instead of the expected summary for policy-makers, the authors produced an executive summary – which doesn’t require a green light from governments at the UNEA. Watson said it is still “a very good synthesis of what the larger [GEO-7] report says”.
The post Saudi Arabia and COP31 host Türkiye move to weaken climate language at UNEA appeared first on Climate Home News.
Saudi Arabia and COP31 host Türkiye move to weaken climate language at UNEA
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The Trump administration has abandoned its effort to halt wind energy projects across the United States and dropped its challenge to the court ruling that tossed President Donald Trump’s order freezing federal permitting and leasing for wind projects. States that challenged the order hailed the development as one of the most significant legal victories against the Trump White House’s campaign against the energy transition.
Trump Administration Abandons Fight Against Wind Energy as Clean Energy Output Surges
Amid reports that the government could weaken the UK’s electric vehicle (EV) targets, Carbon Brief analysis reveals the nation’s EV drivers are saving more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs, compared with running a petrol car.
Battery EVs (BEVs) are roughly four times more efficient than combustion-engine cars, making them far cheaper to run – particularly since the Iran crisis caused a spike in fossil-fuel prices.
The savings from driving BEVs are also more than three times higher than for “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs), which evidence shows are mostly driven with their combustion engines.
In total, the more than 2m BEVs, 1m PHEVs and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are saving drivers around £3bn a year, Carbon Brief’s analysis shows, as illustrated in the figure below.
In addition, these EVs are avoiding the need for nearly 2.5bn litres of fuel and cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by nearly 7m tonnes each year.
Despite recent news that EVs are now cheaper to buy than petrol cars, as well as having far lower running costs, BBC News says the government is “set to water down” its EV sales targets.
The broadcaster explains that the current goal, under the UK’s “zero-emissions vehicle” (ZEV) mandate, is for 80% of new car sales to be BEVs by 2030.
It says that the government is set to consult on weakening this to between 50% and 70%, following “lobbying” by carmakers and trade unions.
According to the Sunday Times, prime minister Keir Starmer “is understood to have overruled the energy secretary [Ed Miliband] after sustained pressure from industry, the Unite union and Peter Kyle, the business secretary”.
The car industry has consistently claimed there is insufficient demand for BEVs to meet the targets under the ZEV mandate, yet the government says manufacturers have “over-complied” to date. Independent analysts say the industry is on track to continue beating the ZEV mandate goals.
The industry has been able to beat its targets by using a wide range of “flexibilities”, which were introduced after a previous round of lobbying. These allow carmarkers to meet part of their EV targets by selling more efficient combustion cars, such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids.
The ZEV mandate is the single-largest part of the government’s plans to meet its legally binding climate goals over the next decade.
The advisory Climate Change Committee (CCC) previously warned that the extra flexibilities would result in a larger number of hybrids being sold, at the expense of battery EVs.
When it consulted on the ZEV mandate in 2023, the then-Conservative government noted that PHEVs do not deliver the cost and CO2 savings they are advertised with.
It pointed to “dramatic” differences between the performance of PHEVs in test cycles and what they deliver under real-world conditions.
In practice, less than a third of miles driven in PHEVs are fuelled by electricity, with petrol making up the rest. As a result, cost and CO2 savings from BEVs are three times larger than for PHEVs.
The post Analysis: UK’s EV drivers are now saving £1,100 each a year – and £3bn in total appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: UK’s EV drivers are now saving £1,100 each a year – and £3bn in total
Civil society groups have called for an investigation into the first carbon credits approved under a new UN mechanism, alleging the project is linked to Myanmar’s military junta – which the UN says is guilty of human rights abuses – and has “massively” overstated its climate impact.
The programme, which aims to cut emissions by distributing efficient cookstoves across Myanmar, received approval to issue around 650,000 carbon credits from the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body in February, in a landmark moment for the Paris Agreement’s carbon market. Only two projects have been given the green light by the mechanism’s regulator so far.
But two reports published last week, led by the Global Forest Coalition and Brussels-based NGO Carbon Market Watch, raised serious concerns about the project’s implementation in conflict zones where civilians have faced airstrikes and mass displacement as well as its emission-reduction calculations.
Project continued after military coup
Myanmar has been ravaged by a brutal civil war since the country’s military overthrew the democratically elected government in a coup d’état in February 2021. The military regime has attacked civilian populations, persecuted ethnic minorities and committed widespread sexual violence, among other serious human rights violations, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar said in April.
The cookstove programme started in 2018 under the previous UN-run carbon offsetting scheme – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – as a partnership between Myanmar’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC) and the Climate Change Center (CCC), a South Korean NGO, with investment from private South Korean firms.
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The project continued operating after the coup. For most of the period between 2021 and 2022 in which the issued credits were generated, MONREC was led by Colonel Khin Maung Yi, who was sanctioned by the European Union in 2021 for supporting the military regime, the Global Forest Coalition report said.
CCC acknowledged engaging with government authorities after the coup but said this “should not be interpreted as political endorsement” of the junta. The South Korean NGO added that abandoning the programme when political circumstances changed “would not necessarily have been the most responsible outcome for the households involved”.
Conflict prevents on the ground verification
The Global Forest Coalition report raised particular concerns about the project’s implementation in Myanmar’s central Dry Zone, including Sagaing Region, an anti-junta resistance stronghold that has been most heavily affected by the conflict and routinely targeted by airstrikes and violent attacks. The region accounts for more than a third of Myanmar’s 3.8 million internally displaced people.
The NGOs said that, in addition to ethical concerns about carbon credits being produced by the military government in an area actively affected by its attacks, this raises questions over the ability to effectively verify the climate integrity of the projects.
Before carbon credits are issued, external auditors need to validate the claims made by project developers and confirm that the emission reductions claimed are correct. This process usually includes site visits to a representative sample of households to check how the improved cookstoves are being used.
But, because of the “volatile political situation” in Myanmar, the auditing team was not able to leave the capital Yangon and could only speak to project participants remotely via Zoom, project documents show.
“Due to ongoing armed conflict on the ground, the data currently used to justify carbon credit issuance in Sagaing by the Burmese military junta is unverifiable and highly likely fraudulent,” said Zaw Tuseng, founder and president of the Myanmar Policy Institute, which contributed to the report, in a written statement. “This demands an immediate suspension of credit transfers until a neutral, conflict-sensitive audit can be conducted.”
“Exceptional circumstances”
CCC told Climate Home News that, although it recognises that on-site verification is “generally preferable, particularly in complex operating environments”, the decision to opt for remote controls was not taken “as a discretionary shortcut, but as an approved alternative under exceptional circumstances”.
The South Korean NGO added that it reviewed the feasibility of the project at community level “on an ongoing basis” and it “did not identify conflict-related incidents that directly affected project implementation activities in participating communities during the monitoring period”.
A spokesperson for the UN climate change body told Climate Home News that, when site access is not possible, the UN carbon credit mechanism allows for “alternative verification approaches while still maintaining conservative assumptions and environmental integrity safeguards”. “These provisions ensure that crediting can only proceed where evidence is reliable,” they added.
Contested methodology
Carbon markets are seen as an important channel to raise money to help low-income communities in developing countries switch to less polluting cooking methods, both reducing CO2 emissions and improving air quality. But several cookstove offsetting projects have faced criticism from researchers and campaigners who argue that climate benefits are often exaggerated and weak monitoring can undermine claims of real emission reductions.
The project in Myanmar uses a contested methodology developed under the earlier Kyoto Protocol that was rejected last year by The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), a watchdog that issues quality labels to carbon credit types, because it found it “insufficiently rigorous”.
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After transitioning from the CDM to the new mechanism, the project was required to apply “more conservative” assumptions to calculate emission reductions, which resulted in 40% fewer credits being issued, according to the UN climate change body.
“The result is consistent with environmental integrity requirements and ensures that each credited tonne genuinely represents a tonne reduced and contributes to the goals of the Paris Agreement,” Mkhuthazi Steleki, the South African chair of the Article 6.4 Supervisory Body, which oversees the mechanism, said in February.
Too many credits issued
But Carbon Market Watch claimed in a second report last week that, despite the adjustment, the project is still likely to issue seven times more credits than its real climate impact justifies, comparing its calculations with values from peer-reviewed scientific literature.
The biggest driver of the credit inflation, the group said, is the failure to account for “stacking” – the widespread practice of households using multiple stoves at the same time, including more polluting ones the project does not monitor.
Peer-reviewed science considers a stacking rate of 68% a conservative assumption, but the methodology used by the Myanmar programme makes no allowance for it at all, the report said.
CCC disputed those findings. In a written response to Climate Home News, it said the project was developed under methodologies approved within the UN climate framework and that external recalculations by researchers are not “determinative of the level of crediting achieved”.
The credits are expected to be used primarily by major South Korean polluters to meet obligations under the country’s emissions trading system – a move that will also enable the government to count those units toward emissions reduction targets in its nationally determined contribution (NDC), the UN climate body told Climate Home News.
Myanmar will use the remaining credits to achieve in part the goals of its own national climate plan under the Paris Agreement.
“Over-crediting, at any magnitude, cannot be compatible with the climate ambition of a world striving to limit global warming to 1.5ºC,” said Isa Mulder, an expert at Carbon Market Watch.
The post UN’s first Paris Agreement carbon credits face human rights and climate concerns appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN’s first Paris Agreement carbon credits face human rights and climate concerns
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