COP31 and the dance on the Titanic

Public television is only broadcasting brief reports, but in Antalya, Turkey, COP31 – the UN Climate Change Conference – is taking place. The aim, as we’ve been told for 31 years, is to accelerate the implementation of the Paris Agreement on reducing CO₂ emissions. So, from memory: cutting use of fossil fuels, increasing the share of electricity in consumption from the current 20 per cent to 35 per cent by 2035, and aid for poor countries – those who, through no fault of their own, are suffering more than others from the dramatic climate crisis. Although the issue is an undeniable, obvious priority, the negotiations on financial resources remain stalled. Once again, Trump’s United States is absent, with Trump dismissing the issue as “a hoax”. And of the roughly two hundred world leaders, more than half are not present and will not be attending, including Italian Prime Minister Meloni, who is too busy trying to secure her own re-election. Yet, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), exceeding the critical threshold of 1.5°C of global warming compared with pre-industrial levels is now definitively inevitable. This figure has been confirmed by Copernicus, the European Earth observation programme: October, too, broke all records and was the hottest on record. Even we, who are no scientists, have noticed this. The conflicts in Iran and Ukraine, Israel’s devastation of Palestine, and the electricity consumption linked to AI data centres – which is growing at a dizzying rate – are not on the agenda of the warmongering climate deniers who control the world. The planet is burning and they carry on dancing in the Titanic’s ballroom. It is a shame that we, too, are on board in third class, crammed in alongside the additional forty-nine million people who, as a result, risk acute hunger by the end of 2027. Experts explain that at least 29 billion dollars would be needed to guarantee food safety: in 2025, 10.5 billion arrived – just over a third. As if to say: sort it out yourselves.