The Hormuz crisis has sparked interest in quick wins that could also have long-term benefits, writes Caroline Varin
Talks on transitioning from fossil fuels are unlikely to progress in official UN Cop 31 summit negotiations in Antalya, Turkey. But energy security concerns resulting from the US-Iran war are keeping the topic firmly on the international agenda.
Initiatives such as a global roadmap to move away from fossil fuels, which the Brazilian UN Cop 30 presidency will present at this year's Cop 31 summit, will largely be dealt with outside of negotiations where decisions are taken by consensus. Major fossil fuel producers, which pushed back on the topic in Brazil last year, argue the transition was sufficiently addressed at Cop 28 in 2023 and that negotiations should focus on cutting emissions and not their sources. Discussions have stalled since Cop 28 concluded with a historic agreement on fossil fuels.
This year may not be the time for transition discussions to be included in official Cop negotiations, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) senior policy advisor Natalie Jones says. Such talks would "toxify" agenda items and probably result in more deadlock, she says. "That is not to say that formal negotiations are devalued, but it's a realistic assessment of where we are at."
Phasing out fossil fuels remains critical and will be discussed at Cop 31, Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said, adding that more countries will announce plans in Antalya. But this will happen as part of the informal summit's action agenda, where stakeholders meet to advance implementation.
Turkey and Australia — presiding over Cop 31 — highlighted the importance of transitioning away from fossil fuels, but have yet to lead by example. Australia is the world's second-largest coal exporter after Indonesia, while Turkey is the seventh-largest coal importer, according to the IEA. "It makes sense to strategically start to plan to overcome the issue of demand decline," IISD's Jones says. "Turkey and Australia could help to show the way. If there are no leaders that step up in this regard, I think it's going to be a real problem."
Umit Sahin, head of climate change studies at the Istanbul Policy Centre, does not expect a push from Turkey towards major producers on the question of transitioning away from fossil fuels. "Turkey appears to have decided that [the topic] itself is not a place to go in the formal Cop negotiations and has decided to approach it through electrification — from an end-use point of view," he said.
Energy crisis/opportunity
But the energy security crisis stemming from the US-Iran war is supporting clean energy development because this field offers quick solutions that will ultimately benefit climate action, IEA executive director Fatih Birol says. Economies reliant on Middle East oil and gas scrambled to secure supplies and implement measures to mitigate disruption — energy conservation, direct subsidies and tax cuts, for example. The crisis has also sharpened political focus on electrification.
The crisis is a lesson for consuming countries, and the resulting shift towards electrification will affect oil demand, TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne has said. The IEA puts the global demand reduction since the start of the conflict at more than 1bn bl, driven by steep declines in China.
There will be no more turning back from clean energy, utility EDF UK's non-executive chair, Alex Chisholm, told the FT Energy Transition Summit earlier this month. This will not be enough to meet the Paris goals, Birol warned, although he said he is hopeful about an agreement on electrification at Cop 31. Turkey set a goal for its action agenda to increase electricity's share of final energy demand worldwide to 35pc by 2035. But the call sits outside of formal negotiations. Arab countries have signalled that they see no need for a "universal" agreement under the informal action agenda.
