ANTALYA, Turkey — The EU climate chief has signaled the bloc is prepared to give up on a key clean energy demand at this year’s COP conference, in a bid to get more countries on board with an electrification push.

A global agreement on accelerating electrification — by increasing electricity’s share in energy use — has been touted as a way to address both worsening climate change and soaring fuel prices resulting from the Iran war.

Countries at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya are currently debating whether they can reach a consensus on the issue in the conference’s final decision. The Turkish-Australian hosts have also urged countries to sign a voluntary pledge to boost electrification.

The EU began the conference wanting any electrification agreement to refer explicitly to “clean” power, generated from renewables or nuclear, a position enshrined in the negotiating mandate agreed by its 27 member governments last month.

But Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, who will co-lead negotiations for the EU from Monday, suggested in an interview that the bloc could drop that condition.

“The world needs much more radical, much faster electrification. Ideally, that comes for the overwhelming part from solar, from wind, and from nuclear sources,” he told POLITICO and other media outlets Friday.

“But at the same time, let’s also acknowledge that a certain degree of pragmatism is probably warranted and needed, to also make sure that the group of countries signing up is as large as possible.”

He added that even electrification using polluting sources — known as gray electricity — was better than burning fossil fuels straight up, as the switch from combustion to more efficient power by itself reduces energy demand and thus emissions.

“Of course we need to have a high degree of solar, wind and nuclear — and at the same time, if we embark on more electrification and part of that is gray, it is still much better to have someone charging their car with gray electricity than to continue to drive on fossil fuels, right?” said Hoekstra. “It would be a tactical mistake to seek absolutes in this.”

He nevertheless hoped electrification would act as a “unifier” in the talks that could help deliver on a previous, more contentious agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. Even China held a similar view to the EU on electrification, he said.

“The good thing about electrification is that there is a certain degree of ambiguity to it, which will probably make it easier to unite a larger group behind that thing,” he said.

Hoekstra also admitted he had “low expectations” for the Antalya summit.

“The geopolitics of the moment are extremely difficult. … Secondly, the whole pushback on climate action from various corners of the globe, the fact that the Americans have completely checked out of this, if you add all of that up … that combination shapes expectations,” he said.

Still, he insisted: “I do think we have a chance of success in the domain of electrification.”

ANTALYA, Turkey — “Anything is possible if you believe,” croons Turkish pop megastar Tarkan in his theme song for this year’s global COP31 climate conference.

Attendees appear to have taken his words to heart.

The Antalya summit marks the first climate talks since the United Nations told the world global warming would soon exceed 1.5C, effectively burying the totemic Paris Agreement target that has steered COP negotiations for more than a decade.

Yet leaders here are straining to keep the goal on life support.

“We are on course to overshoot the 1.5 degree target, and every fraction of a degree matters. So we must double down,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her speech to fellow leaders on Wednesday.

“Let’s show that the fight for 1.5C is not over,” Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands told leaders.

Even before the talks began, Danish Climate Minister Samira Nawa told POLITICO her country’s priority at COP31 was “to push for keeping the 1.5C target in the heart of global climate ambitions.”

Other leaders and ministers, reviving slogans from COPs past, have exhorted their colleagues to “keep 1.5 alive” or ensure the target remains “within reach.”

But scientists say that dream is over.

The U.N. last month said that, even if countries dramatically slash planet-warming emissions starting right now, the best outcome would be a rise in global temperatures of 1.8 degrees. If they also deploy vast amounts of carbon removal tech to clean up the atmosphere, there’s a chance of getting back to 1.5 degrees after surpassing it — in theory.

In reality, though, greenhouse gas emissions are still rising and the carbon-hoovering technologies needed to achieve that reversal are unproven at scale.

The risk

The collective ambition of national climate plans, already insufficient before the U.N.’s announcement, is even weaker than projected last year. Countries that have been among the strongest proponents of meeting the 1.5-degree target are watering down efforts to achieve it.

But at the same time, many countries (and climate scientists) fear that publicly dumping the rhetoric around 1.5C will open the door to weakening global ambitions even further. Highlighting other possible targets, such as the 1.8C mentioned by the U.N., would be a “slippery slope,” warned one European climate negotiator.

“I do not support the political messaging of keeping 1.5C alive — but on the other hand, I don’t want to lose it,” said Johan Rockström, a leading climate scientist and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

“Politicians, when they say that, may naively think that we somehow still are on this linear, incremental journey that can simply take us to safety, which is not the case,” he added. “On the other hand, if we scientifically criticize it, the risk is that they do indeed say: ‘OK, let’s just drop it and aim for 2 degrees instead,’ which would be a big mistake.”

Beyond symbolism

For island nations already losing land and livelihoods to rising oceans, the 1.5 degree target is not merely symbolic. It represents their very survival.

“Our response to the threat of overshoot must be overwhelming, or the world we know is over,” said Heine, the Marshall Islands president. “Overshoot means waves eating away our shores, flooding that destroys towns, schools, hospitals. It destroys our land and ocean.”

The temperature target was not chosen arbitrarily. It represents the level of warming scientists say the planet can endure before the heat trapped in the atmosphere unleashes exponentially greater dangers.

In the Paris accord, countries vowed to limit warming to below 2 degrees and “ideally” 1.5 degrees. The second target has become so dominant that the International Court of Justice last year declared it the primary goal.

A group of developed and highly vulnerable nations, known as the High Ambition Coalition, have called for a credible response to the overshoot as one key COP31 outcome.

“There is no way we can lose that anchor, out of our moral responsibility toward the people who have contributed the least and are the most impacted,” said Christiana Figueres, who headed the U.N. climate body when the Paris Agreement was adopted.

Words vs. action

But promises have not aligned with reality.

“Leaders, and in particular those from developed countries, cannot keep expanding fossil fuel production while claiming to be committed to 1.5 degrees,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told world leaders in his opening speech on Wednesday.

Yet immediately after his speech, leaders did just that.

Australia, COP31 co-hosts with Turkey, is expanding investments in coal and natural gas, even as its Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen urges leaders in Antalya to act with “urgency, solidarity and resolve.”

“With every minute that we fail to achieve the targets set out in the Paris Agreement, the risks and costs we face continue to grow,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Two days earlier, he had celebrated the discovery of two new oil fields.

“The science is clear. Breaching 1.5 isn’t where we down tools and give up,” Katie White, the U.K.’s climate minister, said in response to the U.N. findings. White promised COP31 was the place to double down on action — but a day later, her own department approved a major natural gas project in the North Sea.

Meanwhile the United States, the largest polluter in world history, has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and is no longer part of COP talks. Donald Trump’s abandonment of efforts to address global warming has left a large gap in the world’s collective efforts to cut emissions.

There’s always next year

Tina Stege, the Marshall Islands’ climate envoy, acknowledged the difficulty of the challenge. But she was unbending.

“That’s not a reason to not do everything that we absolutely can,” she told reporters. “Every country that showed up at this talk to do the work needs to do that work and more.”

Doing more means ramping up clean electrification and alternative fuels, say experts.

It also means dramatically curbing short-term climate pollutants, such as methane. That’s emerging as a possible response to the overshoot declaration in the final agreement from this year’s negotiations, according to the European diplomat cited above.

“If we cut methane by nearly half by 2030, we could avoid almost 0.3 degrees of warming by the 2040s and save 250,000 lives every year,” said Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, on Wednesday. “This buys us the time to get back to the 1.5 degrees.”

The politics are tricky. Even as technological advances have allowed for better detection of the potent pollutant, the U.S. and Europe have weakened regulations aimed at curbing methane emissions.

Mottley was adamant nonetheless that flagging global ambitions were no reason to give up.

“I call for a global movement: 1.5 billion voices for 1.5 degrees,” she said. “We need to do this before we meet at COP32 next year. … Make 1.5 impossible to ignore on the planet Earth.”

Le président Lula a été accueilli sous les applaudissements à son arrivée, mercredi, à la COP 31 qui se tient à Antalya, en Turquie. Mais mis à part le Brésilien et quelques autres, de nombreux chefs d’Etats et de gouvernement, dont ceux de la France, de l’Allemagne ou de l’Inde ont fait l’impasse sur cette conférence sur le climat. Pourquoi ce choix ? Comment expliquer l’absence d’Emmanuel Macron ? Qu’attendre des négociations en cours sur sur l’électrification de la planète ? Pourquoi les défenseurs du climat redoutent-ils déjà la prochaine COP ?
Anthony Lattier en discute avec Nicolas Camut, envoyé spécial de POLITICO à Antalya, journaliste spécialiste des questions énergétiques.
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ANTALYA, Turkey — Donald Trump is not at the COP31 climate summit but almost everyone is talking about him — and not in the way he’d like.

The U.S. president’s fateful decision to attack Iran earlier this year, sending global oil and gas prices soaring and compounding an international cost of living crisis, has been invoked — directly or indirectly — by leader after leader in Turkey as a reason to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.

European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said disruptions on the Strait of Hormuz are “shaking global energy markets.” The U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham invoked the specter of “wars across two continents” that “have sent fuel prices and gas bills soaring for families and businesses across the world.” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres noted how “recent conflicts made clear” that countries’ dependence on imported fossil fuels “is a recipe for chronic insecurity and a cost-of-living meltdown.”

“The case for fossil fuels is collapsing,” Gutteres said.

Trump is the name on everyone’s lips for another reason, too.

For the first time since he was reelected two years ago — and promptly announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the U.N. climate process and double down on fossil fuels — delegates at COP are starting to picture life without him in the White House.

“His shadow is still here. His shadow is here because of the midterm elections,” said London Mayor Sadiq Khan, co-chair of the C40 group of city mayors who back stronger climate action. People could “see now, on the horizon, a world without President Trump” or “one of Trump’s protégés” he told POLITICO.

Shadows and dust

Notwithstanding the Republicans’ crushing midterms defeat — itself in part down to the war’s impact on international fuel prices — Trump still looms large.

“The shadow of Trump” is also present at COP because “everyone is struggling with the cost of living,” added Khan — who has form in beefing with the U.S. president.

“Whether you speak to people from the Middle East, from sub-Saharan Africa, from Europe … all these fingers are pointed at President Trump and what he did in Iran. More so ironically — perversely — than Putin in Ukraine. President Trump has got Putin off the hook.”

The rhetoric on display in Turkey has not gone unnoticed in Washington, which has not sent a delegation to COP31. The U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty that underpins COP talks will be completed early next year.

“President Trump is ensuring Iran can never have or use a nuclear weapon—a threat that would have a catastrophic impact on the entire world,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. “The conflict in Iran has underscored the importance of having access to reliable, affordable, and secure energy sources.

“Nations around the world are now turning to the United States as both an example and a partner in pursuing common-sense energy dominance policies,” she argued.

Nonetheless, Khan’s criticisms of Trump — and a cautious optimism about post-2028 American climate policy — are echoed by other diplomats and campaigners in Turkey.

The U.S. midterms and even more importantly for most diplomats the reelection in Brazil of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva offer a “more positive vibe at COP31,” said founder of the E3G climate think tank Nick Mabey, “as countries see a move away from populism and the possibility of positive U.S. engagement on climate.”

“After Lula’s win and what we learned from the U.S. midterms,” agreed one European diplomat, “there’s a bit of a sense of tails up here now.”

ANTALYA, Turkey — World leaders and industry must make electric cars and heat pumps affordable if they are to ensure “people on all incomes” can “make the green transition,” U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham told the COP31 climate summit.

During a flying visit to this year’s U.N. conference in Turkey, Burnham — who has made affordability his core domestic political focus — reaffirmed the U.K.’s commitment to the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

But he warned that the world had “not moved as quick as I had hoped in the past five years” to show citizens that climate action and electrification have cost-of-living upsides.

“The last of these meetings I attended was COP26 as the mayor of Greater Manchester,” Burnham said, referring to the 2021 summit hosted by the U.K. He warned at the time that the climate movement must not lose sight of the “struggles of ordinary families.”

“The world feels very different now, and we need to adapt,” Burnham said. “Electrification in transport, heat and industry is how we make clean power, cheap power.”

While voicing support for COP31 hosts Turkey and Australia’s electrification push, Burnham stopped short of backing the specific target of 35% of global energy use shifting to electricity by 2035.

But he emphasized the benefits the switch could bring, while urging industry to help ensure it helped all consumers.

“If you drive a new electric car today in the U.K., it costs less than a petrol equivalent. Get on the right tariff and a heat pump can be cheaper to run than a gas boiler. These technologies are becoming cheaper, but they are not available to everybody on all incomes,” he said.

“As a government, we are doing our bit by investing in innovation and subsidizing upfront costs for the public. But we need industry to play their part too, and help people on all incomes to make the green transition.”

The focus on EVs and heat pumps comes despite Burnham’s government cutting the subsidy pot for heat pumps at last month’s budget. Ministers are also weighing proposals to water down industry EV quotas.

Nonetheless, Burnham reiterated the U.K.’s over-arching strategy to cut dependence on fossil fuels.  

“The climate crisis is not a distant threat. It is upon us all now, devastating lives and livelihoods everywhere. Meanwhile, two wars across two continents have sent fuel prices and gas bills soaring for families and businesses across the world,” he said. “The common thread running through all of this: our dependence on fossil fuels.”

He announced the U.K. would use its G20 presidency next year to “put climate resilience back on the agenda, with debt, development, and insurance as key issues.”

Burnham’s government has also created a new role of special representative for climate security, appointing former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee Chair Madeline Alessandri to the post.

ANTALYA, Turkey — As world leaders arrive at the U.N. climate conference, the fate of the summit’s flagship pledge hangs in the balance.

On Tuesday, the Turkish hosts held a ministerial meeting aimed at “showcasing early support” for their proposed target of raising electricity’s share of global energy consumption to 35% by 2035, an idea dubbed 35×35.

Only a smattering of governments, however, have explicitly backed the goal so far. Many major economies and big emitters have stayed mum. One diplomat from a developed country said that, for now, only a dozen nations were prepared to sign the pledge. 

The tepid endorsement comes as presidents and prime ministers fly into Antalya for the conference’s leaders’ summit on Wednesday and Thursday. 

In the corridors, and occasionally in press conference rooms, negotiators voiced concerns about the pledge’s alignment with emissions-slashing efforts, the financial aid needed to implement the goal, and whether a brand-new target is necessary at all.

“On the electrification issue, the target is clear, but how can we move together?” asked Adão Soares Barbosa, climate envoy of Timor-Leste and chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group in a press conference on Tuesday. 

“The LDCs are categorized as [having] limited economic capacity to address this electrification issue, this 35×35. So we call upon all parties … to provide financial support. So that we can move together.” 

Explicit endorsements were limited to a handful of developed countries, island nations and governments involved in hosting current or upcoming climate summits. Fossil fuel producers such as Saudi Arabia, or big polluters such as China and India, remained silent. 

Germany, Norway and Ethiopia — which is hosting next year’s COP32 summit — were among the countries that publicly backed the pledge in the ministerial meeting. The European Union, though it still has a few bureaucratic boxes to tick, is poised to sign up to the target, POLITICO reported earlier on Tuesday. 

Others offered soft support for electrification as a theme or made clear that their backing was conditional. 

Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s climate minister, told POLITICO the pledge would need to clarify that the increase in electrification should be achieved only with renewable energy. 

“We support it, but only if the electrification is from renewable sources,” he said. “We don’t support electrification from fossil fuel sources.”

The United Kingdom also appeared to be on the fence about supporting the target, emphasizing the link to clean energy.

“The U.K. is strongly supportive of clean electrification. We warmly welcome the focus of the COP presidency,” London’s Climate Minister Katie White said at the ministerial. “Achieving the ambition we need will require electrification to proceed hand in hand with clean power growth.”

Pakistan’s Climate Minister Musadik Masood Malik told the ministerial that his country “welcomes” the target, but emphasized it must not tie governments down. 

“We appreciate that it creates no binding national targets or additional reporting obligations,” he said. “Its success depends on practical pathways that respect different national circumstances, development needs, and capacities.”

Brazil, which hosted last year’s climate conference, offered only lukewarm support. 

“Brazil fully supports the proposal of electrification,” Climate Minister João Paulo Ribeiro Capobianco told a press conference Tuesday. Then he highlighted Brazil’s use of biofuels, saying the combination of biofuels and electrification was the best way for Brazil to achieve the pledge.

Spokespeople for the Turkish summit presidency did not respond to questions. The Australian co-hosts of COP31, who are leading the formal negotiations at the conference, said they were currently exploring how to include the electrification theme in the final decision text. 

The International Energy Agency, which co-hosted Tuesday’s ministerial, exhorted countries to back the pledge. 

“If it was signed by many, many countries … this will give the markets [and] investors an unmistakable symbol that electricity is the future,” said IEA director Fatih Birol. “It’s the reason this will not only be another pledge, another target — it’s the turning point in the electricity sector.”

ANTALYA, Turquie — L’Union européenne s’engagera, lors de la conférence des Nations unies sur le climat, à augmenter le taux d’électrification mondial, ont déclaré trois diplomates à POLITICO.

Les Etats membres étaient jusque là divisés sur leur soutien à un objectif volontaire, proposé par les hôtes turco-australiens du sommet, visant à porter la part de l’électricité dans la consommation énergétique mondiale à 35% d’ici 2035. Cette part s’élève actuellement à environ 20%.

Mais ces diplomates, à qui l’anonymat a été accordé afin qu’ils puissent révéler des détails sur les discussions à huis clos entre les gouvernements, ont déclaré que les 27 pays membres étaient désormais parvenus à un consensus pour soutenir cet engagement.

Quelques pays de l’UE hésitaient encore à soutenir cet objectif : certains parce que l’engagement ne précisait pas que l’électricité utilisée pour atteindre cet objectif devait être“ « “propre” plutôt que produite à partir de combustibles fossiles, et d’autres parce qu’ils ne souhaitaient pas s’engager sur un nouvel objectif avant que les discussions sur les politiques énergétiques nationales au sein de l’UE ne soient menées à bien.

Lors de la COP31, les pays les plus allants sur les politiques climatiques souhaitent que les efforts d’électrification soient liés aux énergies propres afin de progresser vers l’abandon progressif des combustibles fossiles polluants. D’autres gouvernements préfèrent toutefois laisser la porte ouverte à la possibilité de répondre à la nouvelle demande en électricité grâce au charbon et au gaz.

Le texte de l’engagement, tel qu’il a été dévoilé en septembre par les organisateurs de la COP31, ne faisait pas mention de l’énergie propre.

Cet article a d’abord été publié par POLITICO en anglais, puis a été édité en français par Alexandre Léchenet.

ANTALYA, Turkey — The European Union will sign a pledge to raise the global electrification rate at the U.N. climate conference, three diplomats told POLITICO.

The bloc was divided over whether to back a voluntary goal, proposed by the Turkish-Australian hosts of this year’s COP31 summit, to increase the share of electricity in global energy consumption to 35% by 2035. The share is currently around 20%.

But the diplomats, who were granted anonymity to disclose details of closed-door discussions among governments, said the 27 member countries had now reached consensus on supporting the pledge.

While consensus unblocks the process, the EU’s formal support for the pledge still needs to clear more bureaucratic hoops before it becomes official.

Until Monday, a handful of EU countries were still reluctant to back the goal — some because the pledge did not specify that the electricity used to meet the target must be “clean”  rather than generated with fossil fuels, and some because they did not want to sign up to a new target before discussions over domestic EU energy policies are settled.

At COP31, countries pushing for increased climate action want to see electrification efforts tied to clean energy in order to make progress on phasing out polluting fossil fuels. Other governments, however, prefer to leave the door open to meeting new electricity demand with coal and gas.

The pledge’s wording, as unveiled in September, did not include a reference to clean power.

The EU wants to be a heavyweight at U.N. climate summits. But upcoming elections across the bloc could upend those efforts.

As COP31 kicks off this week, Zoya Sheftalovich and Ian Wishart discuss how the populist surge across the continent could undermine the EU’s efforts to take a stronger leadership role in climate talks like these. Zoya and Ian discuss how domestic politics in France and Spain spell a problem for the bloc’s climate aspirations.

Next, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is in Bulgaria and Romania to show solidarity following deadly attacks in the Black Sea that have been attributed to Russia. But can the EU actually make a difference in the region?

Finally, while cyber experts were looking towards Russia last week, the French government is now blaming Iran for the cyberattacks targeting supermarket fridges. 

Questions? Comments? Message us on WhatsApp here or at +32 491 05 06 29.

Articles mentioned in this episode:

• Why COP31 may be the EU’s last great climate hurrah.
• Spain’s election favorites say Madrid must avoid ‘impossible’ climate timeline.
• Von der Leyen visits Black Sea states amid talk of shipping deal.
• ⁠Who’s who for Europe at the Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi⁠.
  

PARIS — N’est-il plus si chaud pour le climat ?  

Neuf ans après sa fameuse formule “Make our planet great again” , qui lui aura valu des galons de champion du climat à l’international, Emmanuel Macron a choisi de faire l’impasse sur le dernier raout des négociations climatiques de sa décennie élyséenne, la COP31, qui s’ouvre ce lundi à Antalya en Turquie.

Il n’est pas le seul, de nombreux chefs d’Etat ayant également choisi de snober le rendez-vous planétaire cette année. Mais son absence — la quatrième depuis son arrivée au pouvoir — est particulièrement remarquée. 

“Je ne comprends pas, franchement, pourquoi il n’y va pas, pourquoi il n’aide pas l’Union européenne à aller de l’avant”, regrette Laurence Tubiana, ancienne diplomate et architecte de l’Accord de Paris sur le climat. “C’est dommage”, poursuit-elle, relevant les “hésitations” du chef de l’Etat sur les sujets climatiques. 

Officiellement absent pour des raisons d’agenda, comme l’a révélé POLITICO, Emmanuel Macron aurait pourtant aimé en être, lui qui “a pris du plaisir” à participer aux grandes messes du climat, assure ainsi la ministre de la Transition écologique Monique Barbut. “Je pense qu’il regrette [de ne pas pouvoir venir], assure-t-elle. C’est un endroit où il est plutôt très bien accueilli”.

Parmi les soutiens du président, on revendique le choix de manquer certains sommets. 

“La COP n’est pas un rituel incontournable où il faut se montrer. C’est un lieu de négociation pour faire bouger les lignes”, défend quant à elle l’ex-ministre de la Transition écologique Agnès Pannier-Runacher, qui estime qu’il n’y a “pas d’espace de jeu” cette année. 

Reste que parmi ceux qui le connaissent, tous ne sont pas tombés de leur chaise en apprenant la nouvelle, le président n’étant pas, de leur point de vue, un mordu de l’écologie. 

Emmanuel Macron n’est pas “quelqu’un de nativement écolo, ce n’était pas dans son logiciel de base”, reconnaît ainsi sans fard un ex-conseiller de l’exécutif. “Sur la scène internationale, il y voyait une façon de se positionner, d’être un président cool, qui parle aux jeunes”, assure le même.

Les limites du en même temps

Un raisonnement qui illustre bien le rapport du chef de l’Etat à la défense de la planète. 

Côté pile, ses défenseurs louent son activité débordante sur la scène internationale, illustrée par les nombreux sommets sur la biodiversité, la finance climat et la santé environnementale lancés sous son égide, sa défense du Giec, le groupe d’experts dont les travaux constituent la référence scientifique mondiale sur le climat, et du rôle du nucléaire dans la transition verte. Et ce, dans un contexte de durcissement des discussions mondiales sur le climat.  

Sur le plan national, les émissions françaises ont aussi baissé, même si la trajectoire a largement ralenti ces deux dernières années. 

Côté face, il est difficile d’estimer l’effet réel de ces sommets organisés en dehors du cadre onusien.

“Ça fait même plutôt diversion, parce que ça permet à la France de créer ses propres sommets en invitant ses copains, et pas ceux avec qui elle ne s’entend pas”, juge Marine Pouget, responsable de la gouvernance internationale sur le climat au RAC. “Il n’y a rien de concret derrière.”

Au sein des arcanes onusiens, la France a plus de mal à se faire entendre malgré le capital politique que lui a conféré la conclusion de l’Accord de Paris en 2015. 

Les positions françaises sur la finance climat — devenue le principal point de blocage des discussions mondiales sur le climat avec la sortie des énergies fossiles — cristallisent ces difficultés.

Pour des raisons budgétaires et politiques, sous pression de l’extrême droite, l’exécutif tricolore refuse catégoriquement d’augmenter le montant de l’aide climatique versée aux pays en développement. Et reste campé sur l’objectif de 6 milliards d’euros annuels fixé par Emmanuel Macron en décembre 2020, qui fut atteint dès l’année suivante. 

C’est justement cette période qui marque un tournant dans le positionnement du chef de l’Etat sur les enjeux écologiques.

S’il a su tirer parti de la vague verte déclenchée par les manifestations sur le climat au début de son premier mandat, le renoncement à la taxe carbone après le mouvement des Gilets jaunes et la condamnation de l’Etat pour inaction climatique ont laissé des traces, et fini par infuser sur les positions françaises à l’international.

“Pendant quatre, cinq ans, on a surfé sur la vague, il a eu cette image [de champion du climat] et a pu avoir cette ambition, constate un diplomate. A un moment, la fracture est devenue trop grande, et le manque de cohérence trop flagrant.”

L’absence d’une doctrine Macron

C’est au sein de l’Union européenne que ces tensions éclatent au grand jour, à l’automne 2025. Alors que les reculs écologiques se multiplient sur le plan national après la dissolution de l’Assemblée et que les organisations patronales françaises montent au front, Emmanuel Macron semble hésiter, et fait traîner les négociations sur les objectifs climatiques européens.  

Pour la première fois depuis son arrivée au pouvoir, la France sort du camp des ambitieux sur un dossier lié au climat. Le scénario se répète actuellement avec les négociations sur le marché carbone européen, pour lesquelles l’exécutif se retrouve à nouveau écartelé entre les positions des différents ministères.

Ces hésitations reflètent les fractures du monde économique français, entre les entreprises qui ont investi dans la décarbonation et les industriels polluants, comme les chimistes, qui n’ont pas fait la bascule.

Mais elles révèlent aussi les fractures au sein de la coalition centriste qui a conduit Emmanuel Macron au pouvoir. Certains parlementaires du bloc central qui avaient voté la loi Climat et résilience en 2021, principal marqueur écologique du premier quinquennat, étaient ainsi aux abonnés absents au moment de la défendre dans l’hémicycle quatre ans plus tard. 

Des revirements qui nourrissent quelques regrets chez les soutiens les plus écolos du président. L’eurodéputé Pascal Canfin, devenu l’éminence verte du chef de l’Etat sur les sujets européens après son ralliement en 2019, est de ceux-là. 

Emmanuel Macron “n’a jamais conceptualisé d’écologie macroniste” qui aurait “résisté aux modes”, accuse l’ex-directeur général du WWF. 

“Cet aspect pro-climat n’a jamais été identitaire du macronisme, il a été repris, conclut-il. Ça a été une sorte de variable d’ajustement tout au long du quinquennat.”

A reliable water supply, electricity when we need it and a home protected from flooding. These are the foundations of everyday life. When the infrastructure behind them fails, households bear the consequences.

As leaders gather for COP31, global progress on climate action means protecting those essential services must be central to the discussion. Investing in resilience is a national and economic security priority, and the decisions we make now will shape how well our homes, communities and essential services withstand disruption for decades to come.

Recent UK government advice urges households to ‘Be Ready’ and prepare for disruptions. It is a practical reminder of how much daily life depends on infrastructure we rarely notice until it stops working. Following the UK’s hottest summer on record, and with El Niño expected to strengthen into a very strong event, the need to prepare is clear.

The costs are already substantial. In the UK, we are particularly susceptible to flooding, and this year proved that we are not immune to heatwaves and drought. Flooding costs the UK an estimated £2.3 billion annually,¹ while the five heatwaves between May and July 2026 were estimated to have caused more than £4.4 billion in lost productivity.² For households, the consequences can include damage to their homes and disruption to work and daily life. Investing in resilience can reduce that disruption, protect essential services and support Britain’s long-term prosperity.

Flooding costs the UK an estimated £2.3 billion annually, while the five heatwaves between May and July 2026 were estimated to have caused more than £4.4 billion in lost productivity

For Lloyds Banking Group, serving households and businesses across Britain, this connects the infrastructure we help finance with the services our customers rely on. Progress will depend on filling the £11 billion annual gap in UK adaptation investment identified by the UK Climate Change Committee, with the government, infrastructure owners and financial institutions each having a role in turning that shared interest into practical investment.

The Haweswater Aqueduct Resilience Programme illustrates how long-term finance can support that goal, with replacement infrastructure designed to last for over 100 years.

The approximately £3 billion program is replacing six tunnel sections of an aqueduct that supplies drinking water to around 2.5 million people across Cumbria, Lancashire and Greater Manchester. A £300 million National Wealth Fund credit-enhancement facility, backed by a HM Treasury guarantee, helped reduce financing risk and attract private investment. Scottish Widows is supporting the program as a senior lender, with Lloyds providing banking services. Most importantly, households will benefit from a continued, reliable water supply for generations to come.

Public support and private finance can work together to fund essential infrastructure, with clear responsibilities for delivery and benefits for the communities it serves. Investment elsewhere should start with where disruption is most likely, how businesses can prepare and what protection suits local needs. The priority is fewer interruptions to daily life and the essential services communities rely on.

Insurance has an important role in making resilience investment work for households as well as businesses. Insurers’ understanding of physical climate risks can help owners, lenders and investors assess where protection is needed and the value of reducing exposure. Working with the government, the industry can explore how investment in prevention and longer-term approaches to risk can help sustain access to cover. The aim should be to reduce both the damage people experience and the financial strain that follows rather than relying on insurance alone after an event.

Businesses need to adopt commercially pragmatic mindsets that answer honestly how their assets and operations are designed for climate conditions that are already disrupting how we live and operate. Those answers carry real financial consequences: insurance costs and availability, access to capital, asset valuations, financing terms, and long-term competitiveness. Preparedness is the difference between an organization’s short-term viability and long-term prosperity.

Better data can help lenders, investors and insurers understand where infrastructure is exposed and assess the value of measures to protect it. Climate risk varies from place to place, so investment decisions need to reflect local conditions. The task is to make that understanding a routine part of financing, valuation and insurance decisions by directing investment toward the resilience needs of communities instead of waiting for disruption to reveal them.

Businesses need to adopt commercially pragmatic mindsets that answer honestly how their assets and operations are designed for climate conditions that are already disrupting how we live and operate

Finally, the public and private sectors must finance nature-based and engineered solutions together, because truly resilient infrastructure depends on both. Nature is one of our greatest assets: nature-based solutions such as wetland restoration can help protect communities from extreme weather, lower long-term costs, and generate wider economic, environmental and social value. When we look beyond individual megaprojects and take a holistic approach that includes the natural world, we can most effectively protect the critical functions of society, nature and economy alike.

The UK has deep expertize in finance and insurance. The challenge is to turn that expertize into more reliable services for households and more resilient places to live and work.

The government can provide clear frameworks that support long-term investment. Infrastructure owners should plan for future climate conditions. Lenders, investors and insurers should use their understanding of physical risks to inform where and how capital is deployed.

COP31 is an opportunity to focus attention on that task. The priority is investment that helps keep water running, power available and homes better protected from flooding. 

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References

¹ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/estimating-potential-economic-costs-of-flooding/estimating-potential-economic-costs-of-flooding#calculating-potential-economic-costs-aad-of-flooding

² Verdant (2006), The Cost of Heat Summer 2026 Heatwave: an economic update

LONDON — Andy Burnham jets off to the latest global COP climate summit early next week. The last time he went to this annual meeting of the world’s climate diplomats, he didn’t like what he saw. 

“I’m just back from two days at COP26 and officially worried about the state of the climate debate,” Burnham, then the mayor of Greater Manchester, wrote in 2021, after a trip to that year’s U.N. conference in Glasgow. 

This year’s edition, COP31, kicks off in Antalya, Turkey next week, with a focus on protecting countries hit hardest by the impacts of global warming and setting goals for electrifying world economies.

Burnham will be there — now as British prime minister. And that little-noticed article, published five years ago in the Evening Standard newspaper, says plenty about his political instincts on climate change. 

2021 was the high point of the U.K. consensus on net zero. But the then-future prime minister criticized the summit for giving a “pulpit” to billionaire Jeff Bezos (who had earlier that year “burnt more carbon in a trip to space than most people consume in a lifetime”) and took aim at protesters “with the time to glue themselves to roads … reprimanding ordinary people under work and time pressures for using their cars.” 

Burnham backed climate action, he insisted. But with its technocratic focus on “percentages and far-off dates, with remarkably little reference to the struggles of ordinary families,” there was a danger COP would send the wrong message: “That the drive to net zero will mean cost and inconvenience for ordinary people.” 

Several years and one big job change later, those views have not changed. 

Interviews with more than a dozen advisers, government officials, pollsters and MPs around Burnham reveal a PM convinced of the dangers posed to Britain and the world by runaway global warming — yet whose first instinct, sometimes to the frustration of climate advocates, is to prioritize cost of living and energy security worries at home. 

“I think Andy does get the big picture climate emergency, the urgency with which we need to act,” said Dale Vince, a clean energy entrepreneur and former New Age traveler who has advised Burnham on energy. But “millions of people in our country are asking: ‘How do I pay the bill?’” 

Many politicians are “out of touch with that,” Vince argued. “Andy doesn’t forget it.” 

Mr Pragmatic 

Burnham has been putting that approach into practice since taking power in July. 

Like his predecessor Keir Starmer, he believes the long-term solution to Britain’s cripplingly high energy costs is cutting dependence on expensive, foreign-controlled fossil fuels. But Burnham is also readier to drive down costs associated with the net-zero transition, many of which also end up on voters’ bills. 

In last month’s budget, Burnham’s Chancellor John Healey announced a new mantra: “first and foremost cheaper energy.” Renewables projects like solar and wind farms must now show how they’ll bring down bills if they want to get government support. A subsidy pot for low-carbon electric heat pumps was cut by up to £2.5 billion. Healey has promised to overhaul how energy costs are paid via bills in the new year. 

Most controversially, Burnham has presided over the decision by Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh to approve a new gas field in the North Sea, Jackdaw. Ministers argued more gas drilling off the Scottish coast would give a short-term boost to energy security, with some of its tax revenues routed into developing clean power.

A decision on the oilfield Rosebank, where climate-damaging emissions will be even higher, is expected by the end of the year. 

There is a big difference, Burnham told MPs last month, between the “ideological” opposition of his anti-drilling Green Party rivals and his own “pragmatic approach.” 

The team of rivals 

Next week, Burnham will find out how that message plays on the global green stage. 

He will be accompanied by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, a prominent climate advocate. A Labour MP, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said Burnham’s choice of Miliband to run the Foreign Office — even as he lets Healey cut some green spending at home — was a deliberate “team of rivals” ploy to balance Labour’s progressive and centrist wings on climate. 

“That’s the kind of the ideological fault line in the Cabinet, and it does run through climate, very much so,” the MP said.   

Burnham’s visit to COP is expected to be a short one. 

Those briefed on government planning expect him to attend for no more than a day. Emmanuel Macron, the French President, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — both also facing a backlash against the cost of living at home — are skipping the summit entirely. 

While in Antalya, Burnham should try to land his message that letting energy costs spiral higher and higher is the quickest way for countries to lose political support for climate action, say supporters of his agenda. 

“Bringing bills down would help the climate cause more than any speech,” argued Sunny Hundal, a former adviser at Britain’s biggest energy supplier Octopus and now boss of the Cheap Clean Energy Alliance campaign group. Nonetheless, he added: “If Britain is to not become a cautionary tale for the rest of the world, it has to show that the path to cleaner energy is through cheaper energy.” 

‘Betrayal’ 

The U.K. is seen by countries on the deadly frontline of climate change as a key ally in COP negotiations — particularly around weaning the world off fossil fuels. 

That means Burnham’s North Sea policies might get a cool reception, said Mohamed Adow, director of the Nairobi-based climate and energy think tank Power Shift Africa. 

“Jackdaw has certainly been noticed,” Adow said. “From Africa, it is deeply frustrating to see a wealthy country like Britain approve more fossil fuel production while asking developing countries to pursue a cleaner path. Decisions taken in London have consequences for people facing droughts and floods thousands of miles away.  

“Andy Burnham should be under no illusion: approving Rosebank would be a betrayal of the communities he will hear from at COP31.” 

Bill Esterson, a Labour MP and chair of the House of Commons Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, now expects Rosebank to get the go-ahead. Another Labour MP, the same quoted above, said Healey’s Treasury was “really pressuring” Fahnbulleh to approve the project because “it wants the tax revenue.” 

Burnham’s decision to show off some climate consciousness by attending COP at all is, the same MP said, partly a move to placate Labour’s more green-minded backbenchers in advance of approving Rosebank. 

“You get the feeling there’s political space being made for this shittier decision,” they said. 

Esterson took a more generous view of Burnham’s agenda. “He recognizes the [climate] imperative, but he also recognizes the reality of taking people with [him]. I think that’s at the heart of his whole approach to being prime minister, actually.” 

Political threats 

Political rivals spy an opportunity. 

“You can’t claim to be serious about climate leadership when you’re making it harder and more expensive for people to move away from fossil fuels,” said Pippa Heylings, energy security and net zero spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, attacking the “incoherence” of Burnham’s approach to climate.  

Carla Denyer, a Green Party MP and former co-leader of her party, pointed to Jackdaw and the looming call on Rosebank. “The change Andy Burnham promised has so far failed to materialize when it comes to tackling the climate crisis,” she said. 

Alienating voters worried about the climate carries political risks for Burnham, who has restored Labour’s lead in national opinion polls primarily by attracting Labour/Green swing voters, said polling analyst Steve Akehurst, director of Persuasion UK. 

“None of the individual policy tweaks or changes to net zero are likely to matter on their own, but if they add up to an overall picture of backtracking on climate action it will present a big opportunity for [Green leader] Zack Polanski,” said Akehurst. 

Taking climate “pragmatism” too far could alienate Labour’s existing voters, too. According to new Persuasion UK and YouGov polling shared with POLITICO, 22% of Labour’s 2024 voters list climate and environment in their top three priorities — but only 4% think Burnham does.  

“It’s one of the few policy areas that Labour voters prioritise but don’t currently sense that the PM does,” Akehurst said. 

But allies including Vince think Burnham’s strategy can head off a different political threat, this one coming from the right. 

Heat pump subsidies, he argued, were only helping households that could already afford the additional costs of switching to clean heat. “Middle class subsidies is what we’re about at the moment in the pursuit of net zero, and I think it’s been a gift to Reform,” said Vince, referring to Nigel Farage’s right-wing party, which along with the Conservatives say they would scrap the U.K.’s 2050 net zero target. 

“Icecaps and polar bears [are] all very well,” said Vince. “But when people are struggling to pay their energy bills — it’s not the primary thing that will persuade them.”