COP30 - Green Prophet

Turkey named as climate change COP31 home in 2026

Karin Kloosterman — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 11:34:40 +0000

Murat Kurum as President-Designate of COP31

The announcement of Murat Kurum as President-Designate of COP31 marks a pivotal moment for global climate diplomacy and for Turkey’s evolving role on the international climate stage.

With COP31 expected to be held in Antalya, climate negotiations move into the Mediterranean basin—one of the fastest-warming regions on Earth. Turkey is already confronting the front-line impacts of climate change: prolonged droughts stressing water systems, intensifying wildfires, severe flooding from extreme rainfall, coastal erosion, and growing pressure on food, energy, and urban infrastructure. Hosting COP31 places these lived realities at the center of global decision-making.

Turkey occupies a unique geopolitical and economic position. As a G20 economy and a bridge between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, it sits at the intersection of climate vulnerability and climate opportunity. It is both an emerging economy still expanding its energy and industrial base, and a country increasingly aware that resilience, adaptation, and sustainability are no longer optional—they are economic and social imperatives. It has also been a rising threat to global stability as it’s given refuge to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas militants. Every hotel and many restaurants in Turkey require you to go through weapons detections devices.

In recent years, Turkey has made tangible contributions to climate action. The country has rapidly scaled renewable energy capacity, particularly in solar, wind, and geothermal power, while reducing reliance on imported fossil fuels. It has launched nationwide zero-waste initiatives, invested in climate-resilient urban transformation, and prioritized disaster preparedness following increasingly frequent climate-linked extreme events.

Under Murat Kurum’s leadership, urban resilience, energy-efficient buildings, and sustainable land use have become core elements of environmental policy. But they still killed 4 million dogs this past year. Like it’s always been, Turkey is between the old and the new, the east and the west.

Balat, Istanbul

COP31 in Antalya offers an opportunity to re-center global climate talks on implementation. The road from COP30 to COP31 will be defined by delivery—turning national commitments into real emissions reductions, adaptation projects, and financing mechanisms that reach vulnerable communities. Turkey is well positioned to help bridge long-standing divides between developed and developing countries, between ambition and affordability, and between mitigation and adaptation.

As COP31 President-Designate, Murat Kurum’s role will be to help shift the global climate agenda from negotiation fatigue to measurable progress. For Turkey, hosting COP31 is a chance to demonstrate leadership grounded in pragmatism, regional solidarity, and real-world solutions—showing that climate action can strengthen economies, protect communities, and accelerate a fairer, more resilient development path.The world’s journalists will be there and hopefully with a watchful eye.

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Global Emissions Keep Rising, But Scientists Say Peak is in Sight

Julie Steinbeck — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 05:48:07 +0000

Black smog in Cairo

At COP30 in Belém, Brazil, scientists delivered another stark update: global fossil-fuel emissions are set to rise yet again this year. But for the first time, there are credible signs the world may be nearing a turning point. The timing of that peak — and what happens afterward — will depend largely on one country: China.

According to new data released by the Global Carbon Project on 13 November, emissions from fossil-fuel burning and cement production are projected to rise by 1.1% in 2025, reaching 38.1 billion tonnes of CO₂. That represents yet another record high.

Overall greenhouse-gas emissions — which also include methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases — are still climbing. Yet scientists at COP30 stressed that emissions growth is slowing, and that a peak could emerge within the decade. As Bill Hare, physicist and head of Climate Analytics in Berlin, put it: “We don’t [project] the global inflection point until around 2030, unfortunately, but it does look like emissions are flattening off.”

Some researchers argue that the world may already be entering the early stages of decline for CO₂ specifically. The Global Carbon Project notes that overall carbon emissions could fall slightly in 2025 if a projected drop in deforestation and other land-use changes holds. But researchers caution that it is still “too early to say that the world has turned a corner on its fossil-fuel addiction.”

Emissions today are roughly 10% higher than when the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 — far from where they need to be to limit warming to 1.5°C. Major industrialized countries, responsible for the bulk of historical emissions, have been reducing their emissions for more than two decades. But emissions are rising nearly everywhere else, especially across low- and middle-income countries that are growing their economies and expanding energy access.

China is the deciding factor

No country shapes the global emissions trajectory more than China. Over the past two decades, China has become the world’s largest emitter and now accounts for almost one-third of global greenhouse gases. The main driver is coal: China burned nearly 2.3 billion tonnes of it last year, according to the International Energy Agency in a Nature recap.

Yet China, conversely, is also the world leader in clean-energy deployment — wind, solar, and electric vehicles — and has committed to reducing overall greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 7% from peak levels by 2035. Hare predicts that when China’s emissions peak, global emissions will peak as well.

So are we in a good place?

A growing number of analysts believe that moment may have already arrived. Data from Carbon Monitor, which tracks daily emissions, suggests China’s carbon emissions peaked in 2024 and will fall by 1.2% this year. Researchers at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) report a similar downward trend.

According to Zhu Liu, an Earth-systems scientist at Tsinghua University, the biggest driver of the current decline is the collapse of China’s real-estate market, which has slashed demand for cement and steel. (See the problems of concrete and cement here) Clean-energy deployment is accelerating as well. China’s impact on other nations such as Ethiopia are also clear. Massive neighborhoods around Addis Ababa were built with cement and then abandoned. “I would say this is the peak of China’s carbon emissions,” Liu says.

China isn’t known for its accuracy in anything, certainly not the news. To win global favor and expanding trade agreements in EVs for instance, China will need to learn to be a bit more like the west. Countries that have bought Chinese EVs, for instance, understand they are a security risk as the Communist party can collect data and information about the drivers and the roads with the flip of a switch.

Over the years, the concerns of China spying have led to a wave of proposed bans and new rules on devices such as DJI drones, with US lawmakers and agencies worried that they could send sensitive information to China or be used for spying. The biggest push to ban DJI comes from the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

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Qatar’s climate hypocrisy rides the London Underground

Karin Kloosterman — Tue, 11 Nov 2025 09:03:01 +0000

Climate hypocrisy

Fossil fuel giant Qatar—the world’s top LNG exporter and a known sponsor of extremist and terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, has no free press at home, yet floods London with glossy ad campaigns telling the West how to manage carbon credits and climate change. It’s the height of green hypocrisy: a petrostate profiting from the crisis while pretending to cure it.

If you’ve taken the London Underground lately, you may have seen them — sleek Al Jazeera English ads urging governments to “redouble their efforts to tackle climate change.” The image: a man knee-deep in floodwater, dragging what looks like the remains of a livelihood. The message: urgent, moral, global. The messenger here to save us: Qatar.

I’ve seen similar ads from Saudi Aramco about how we need to invest in clean energy on the back pages of the New York Times as they pump out megatons of oil.

It’s a curious irony — the world’s richest per-capita fossil fuel state paying for climate virtue ads in the West timed with COP30 in Brazil. Qatar, a monarchy built on liquefied natural gas exports and one of the highest per-capita carbon footprints on Earth, is telling London commuters how to save the planet. The country that bankrolls the world’s most polluting industries, limits press freedom, and funds a network forbidden from criticizing its own rulers now positions itself as a moral voice for climate action. You can’t make it up.

The Al Jazeera campaign has plastered slogans across London, part of a broader PR push to soften Qatar’s image ahead of the next round of UN climate talks happening now in Brazil, COP30, a charade of do-gooders where not much gets done. In a just world, no fossil fuel companies should be leading this conversation. Like cigarette companies, they should be banned from buying ads.

In a just world, the billions spent on soft-power PR that comes out of London offices (see our story on how a London firm greenwashes Qatar to ravage a Seychelles island) would go toward real decarbonization and freedom of information.

Until then, Qatar remains a master of doublethink—burning gas by the megaton while selling “sustainability” to a world desperate for clean air. Wake up from your slumber people.

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Ecomondo vs. COP: Where the Climate Transition Actually Happens

Isabella Hannah — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 11:48:11 +0000

Ecomondo

As the 28th edition of Ecomondo opens in Rimini, Italy it comes with a quiet truth that feels almost subversive in the era of climate mega-summits and scripted ministerial statements: this trade fair — full of waste-sorting robotics, composting technology, soil-remediation systems, and industrial biogas machinery — may now matter more to the planet’s future than the COP conferences that dominate global climate headlines.

COP has always been about diplomacy, negotiation, and political signaling. It is the global stage where nations gather to pledge emissions targets, debate loss-and-damage financing, and reaffirm their commitment to a shared climate agenda. It’s a place where people meet when the previous work has already been done.

But we are no longer living in a decade where promises are the substance of climate action. We are living in the decade of execution.

ANAS – CANTIERI STATALI. Incontro con Sindaco Alessandro Barattoni e tecnici Anas sui lavori della SS16 Adriatica e della Ss 67.

And execution does not happen in marble plenaries or UN press tents. It happens in exhibition halls like those in Rimini — in the sight of shredder lines turning textile waste into new feedstock, water-recycling systems being stress-tested, algae vats bubbling quietly, and biofertilizer reactors feeding regenerative agriculture.

In other words: COP is where the world talks about climate action. Ecomondo is where the world actually builds it.

This year Ecomondo brings together more than 1,700 exhibiting companies, 30 halls, 166,000 square meters of circular-economy innovation, 380 hosted buyers from 66 countries, and over 200 conferences led by industrial, academic, and regulatory experts. It’s a demonstration of scale — but not the theatrical scale of global diplomacy. It’s the scale of supply chains, of business models, of industrial ecosystems.

Walk through Rimini and the difference is instant: instead of panels debating ambition levels, you see companies demonstrating anaerobic digesters, next-gen composting infrastructure, optical sorters for plastic waste, textile-recycling machinery, aquifer-restoration systems, AI-enabled climate monitoring tools, lithium battery shredders, and sludge-to-fertilizer technology.

Europe’s emissions goals will not be met by pledges, but by infrastructure. The circular economy will not scale through slogans, but through procurement, factories, and financing models. And Ecomondo understands this.

The 2025 programme leans into the hardest industrial questions of the decade:

How do we close the loop on textiles under new EU rules?
What happens to 2030’s waste solar panels and wind turbines?
Can biogas and biomethane scale fast enough to displace fossil gas?
How do cities transform waste streams into economic resources?
How do we regenerate degraded soils at continental scale?
How do we secure critical minerals without opening new wounds?

COP’s theater vs. Ecomondo’s workshop

COP is necessary — it forces nations to face each other and acknowledge a shared emergency. But it is also a place of gesture politics, where governments announce recycled commitments, fossil fuel lobbyists measure influence, and energy companies pose as climate champions while expanding extraction.

In Rimini, the performance drops away. Nobody wins Ecomondo with a pledge or a photo op. You win if your system works, if your process scales, if a municipal department or multinational buyer signs a deal to decarbonize their operations.

Italy is not always positioned as a climate-policy powerhouse. Yet in circularity, water treatment, bioeconomy, and industrial ecology, it is quietly one of the most advanced economies in the world that knows how to dream –– and work.

In a global conversation often dominated by the U.S.–China technology rivalry, Ecomondo is a reminder: Europe’s strength is systems thinking. Decarbonization here looks like integration — circular supply chains, wastewater reuse, biobased feedstocks, land restoration, local manufacturing, and policy synchronized with industry.

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Nature as Capital at COP30 and how blended finance and debt-for-nature swaps work

Karin Kloosterman — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 09:05:14 +0000

Jubail mangrove wal in Abu Dhabi

Belém’s COP30 puts forests, freshwater and oceans at center stage. How are emerging markets treating nature as infrastructure— and plugging it into finance and trade. We know that the world has reached the coral tipping point, and as you are busy saving the trees and oceans, know how activists, locals, banks and business can work together. Learn the lingo of finance mechanisms to help save the planet.

Everyone will cover the headlines from the United Nation’s climate conference, this year called COP30 and which is in Belém, Brazil. Fewer will explain the mechanics of how nature becomes cashflow, trade leverage and resilience infrastructure—especially for the Global South. That’s the gap we’re filling. Green Prophet offers a practical question: what instruments exist right now to turn living systems into value chains that stand up to droughts, floods and supply-chain shocks? And how can MENA, Africa and Latin America lead instead of only react.

Know your terminology if you want to follow the conversations in the room

Blended Finance

Econcrete restores coastal habitats with low-cost concrete that mimics a natural shoreline.

Blended finance is the engine room. Public and philanthropic “first-loss” capital de-risks deals; commercial investors come in behind. The aim is to move beyond pilot projects into pipelines that pay for restoration at scale. The World Bank’s recent review shows a surprising depth of activity in nature-based infrastructure, with millions of people already benefiting from coastal and watershed projects that reduce disaster risk while growing local economies.

Let’s take an example we can get behind: Imagine there is huge project to fix a coastline that’s getting destroyed by storms over and over again. We know that planting mangrove trees and building natural barriers to protect homes and schools works. But who pays for this, especially in developing nations like Thailand, where government money might be tight, especially on small islands.

Thailand’s, and Saudi Arabian mangrove forests can help mitigate climate change by keeping rising tides and storms at bay

The problem is that it costs a lot to plant and maintain mangrove trees and natural barriers, and even less natural ones like the ones built by Eco-Concrete in costal areas of New York. There is a lot of good reasons why protecting coastlines are good: tourism, business and stability to invest in a region pay off in the long term.

So how does blended finance work? Big investors might not build a university or a business center in an at-risk area like Indonesia because its islands are at-risk from flooding. They watch as government and charities go first to build pilot projects. These groups take the first losses and are buffered to do so. When investors see a project or pilot is working, the investors and banks can join in.

The end result is that if it’s a project on island resilience, and it’s done well with the local community, the fishermen get more fish, the houses and infrastructure don’t flood, and tourism and businesses in the area improve. Now instead of the government or local municipality working to clean up new disasters as they happen, the community and investors protect a community and its economy.

Where this is doing well:
Indonesia: planting mangroves to protect coasts and create jobs, in Kenya where they are restoring forests to secure water for cities and farms and in Colombia, where they are rebuilding riversides to stop floods and boost tourism. The World Bank found millions of people already benefiting from nature-based projects like these. They’re not just experiments — but are becoming real business pipelines.

Debt for Nature Swaps

Debt-for-nature swaps are also keywords you will hear coming out of COP30 and debt-for-nature is having a moment. By refinancing sovereign debt of a nation and locking savings into conservation endowments, countries can protect mangroves, reefs and forests while improving fiscal stability.

The Bahamas’ swap—backed by private guarantees and insurers—unlocked roughly $124 million for ocean protection and mangrove recovery. Expect more hybrids like “blue bonds,” watershed bonds, and biodiversity-linked notes as COP30 pushes nature up the finance agenda.

Canada is beginning to explore similar nature-finance mechanisms. They are offering grants for businesses that support climate change initiatives. While small island nations pioneered debt-for-nature swaps, the logic applies anywhere natural assets protect economies. Take the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes Basin. This is a freshwater system worth trillions in trade, shipping, drinking water, hydropower, and fisheries — yet it faces rising storm surges, coastal erosion, surges in algae blooms, and biodiversity loss.

Imagine a Canadian “watershed bond” modelled on the Bahamas’ blue bond play: federal and provincial governments refinance aging municipal debt in water-adjacent cities like Toronto beaches, Kingston, Thunder Bay, and Windsor. Interest savings are then routed into a protected watershed fund to restore wetlands, rebuild fish nurseries, and reinforce natural floodplains that protect ports and neighborhoods.

Who backs it? Pension funds like CPP Investments, insurers hedging climate risk, and Indigenous-led stewardship trusts that secure long-term governance. Satellite and LiDAR data verify improved water quality, carbon storage, and flood protection — giving investors confidence that nature isn’t just a moral win, but a balance-sheet asset.

Nature Markets

Circle farming in Holland uses AI and nature together.

Nature markets are growing up fast — and not just carbon trading. Investors and governments are starting to put real contracts behind things like restoring habitats, protecting species, and improving fisheries. In the past, these ideas lived in Canva or PowerPoint presentations and pilot projects that didn’t go far beyond the anecdote stage. Today, they’re showing up in legal agreements, budgets, and deal pipelines.

What changed? Measurement tech and startups working in the impact space. We can now track how many fish return to a reef, how much flood damage is avoided when wetlands are restored, or how many species come back when forests regrow. When you can measure nature’s value, you can finance it. Also, investors found that impact companies can return significantly higher returns on investment.

The early winners will be projects that do more than one thing: reduce carbon, protect coasts, boost fishing incomes, create jobs, and improve water security. In short, projects and companies that score high in ESG. Instead of selling just one benefit, they’ll earn money from many revenue streams. The future natural economy isn’t supposed to be about charity — it’s revenue, resilience, and concepts like regenerative agriculture working together.

What to watch at COP30

A Brazil rainforest

Belém in Brazil may be remembered as the summit where nature moved from a side-event to system change. If you are there at the event, Look for bigger blended-finance vehicles for forests and watersheds, standardized biodiversity/ecosystem credit frameworks, clearer guidance on how trade tools like CBAM and deforestation-free rules interact with development and equity goals, and concrete deals in the Amazon and beyond that link restoration to export growth.

Media attention will swirl around politics, but the durable story is finance and how data can turn ecosystems, including jungles and seashore towns, into resilient value-chains.

Explore related coverage on Green Prophet

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We’ve reached the coral tipping point

Julie Steinbeck — Thu, 16 Oct 2025 10:07:39 +0000

Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching

Widespread mortality of warm-water coral reefs under way, as world reaches first tipping point

The world faces a “new reality” as we have reached the first of many Earth system tipping points that will cause catastrophic harm unless humanity takes urgent action, according to a landmark report released by the University of Exeter and international partners.

With ministers gathering ahead of the COP30 summit, the second Global Tipping Points Report finds that warm-water coral reefs – on which nearly a billion people and a quarter of all marine life depend – are passing their tipping point. Widespread dieback is taking place and – unless global warming is reversed – extensive reefs as we know them will be lost, although small refuges may survive and must be protected.

We are on the brink of more tipping points, with devastating risks for people and nature: the irreversible melting of polar ice sheets, the collapse of key ocean currents and the dieback of the Amazon rainforest – where COP30 will be held.

With global warming set to breach 1.5°C, the report – by 160 scientists at 87 institutions in 23 countries – argues that countries must minimise temperature overshoot to avoid crossing more tipping points. Every fraction of a degree and every year spent above 1.5°C matters.

Green Prophet published an IRENA report today that shows while we’ve made progress in renewables, we aren’t going to make targets unless we double up.

Twende solar installation in Ethiopia

Action to trigger “positive tipping points” of self-propelling change – such as the rollout of green technologies – now offers the only credible route to a safe, just and sustainable future, the report says.

The researchers are working with Brazil’s COP30 Presidency to ensure that tipping points are on the agenda at the summit.

Professor Tim Lenton, from the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, said: “We are rapidly approaching multiple Earth system tipping points that could transform our world, with devastating consequences for people and nature. This demands immediate, unprecedented action from leaders at COP30 and policymakers worldwide.

“In the two years since the first Global Tipping Points Report, there has been a radical global acceleration in some areas, including the uptake of solar power and electric vehicles. But we need to do more – and move faster – to seize positive tipping point opportunities. By doing so, we can drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions and tip the world away from catastrophic tipping points and towards a thriving, sustainable future.”

Dr Mike Barrett, chief scientific advisor at WWF-UK and co-author of the report, said: “The findings of this report are incredibly alarming. That warm-water coral reefs are passing their thermal tipping point is a tragedy for nature and the people that rely on them for food and income. This grim situation must be a wake-up call that unless we act decisively now, we will also lose the Amazon rainforest, the ice sheets and vital ocean currents. In that scenario we would be looking at a truly catastrophic outcome for all humanity.

A coral reef in the Red Sea.

“As we head into the COP30 climate negotiations it’s vital that all parties grasp the gravity of the situation and the extent of what we all stand to lose if the climate and nature crises are not addressed. The solutions are within our reach. Countries must show the political bravery and leadership to work together and achieve them.”

The report says that the nature of abrupt and irreversible Earth system tipping points mean that they pose a different type of threat to other environmental challenges, and that current policies and decision-making processes are not adequate to respond. Global action must include accelerating emissions reductions and scaling up carbon removal to minimise temperature overshoot. The expected impacts of tipping processes need to be considered in risk assessments, adaptation policies, loss and damage mechanisms and human rights litigation.

Dr Manjana Milkoreit, from the University of Oslo, said: “Current policy thinking doesn’t usually take tipping points into account. Tipping points present distinct governance challenges compared to other aspects of climate change or environmental decline, requiring both governance innovations and reforms of existing institutions.

“Preventing tipping points requires ‘frontloaded’ mitigation pathways that minimise peak global temperature, the duration of the overshoot period above 1.5°C, and the return time below 1.5°C. Sustainable carbon dioxide removal approaches need to be rapidly scaled up to achieve this.”

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