COP31: US mayors attend as Trump skips talks

US state and local officials attended the COP31 climate talks in Antalya after President Donald Trump sent no US administration representative to the UN summit, while Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva drew cheers at a civil society event.

The annual climate conference began on Monday in the Turkish Mediterranean resort city and is due to run until November 20. Trump, who pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, did not attend and sent no representative. Former US secretary of state and climate envoy John Kerry, former vice president Al Gore and several governors and mayors travelled to Antalya.

Vicki Veenker, the mayor of Palo Alto, California, said mayors were closest to the people they served and would “step up” when Washington stepped back. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said the rhetoric from Washington was held by a minority of people.

Lula, who narrowly won re-election last month, was welcomed by a cheering crowd. Environmentalists have praised him for cutting Amazon deforestation and creating an Indigenous peoples ministry. Lula, who survived throat cancer in 2011, skipped two scheduled speeches on Wednesday because of his throat, but spoke hoarsely on Thursday about his first COP in 2009.

The talks have also been hit by transport disruption, with events cancelled and delegates missing meetings because of delayed arrivals and a lack of available transport. Tasneem Essop, executive director of the Climate Action Network civil society alliance, said some people had been sitting on buses for five hours and that the disruption had had “a huge impact on the work inside”.

Britain's Prime Minister Andy Burnham told leaders he had appointed Madeleine Alessandri, the former head of the UK's Joint Intelligence Committee, as a special envoy focused on climate security. Burnham said climate was a national security issue. Cosima Cassel of climate think-tank E3G said Britain was the first country to establish a separate job focused on climate security.

Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez defended her country's “sovereign right” to develop its oil industry, saying a just transition should transform economies rather than shut them down. Brazil has been promoting a global roadmap for countries to transition away from fossil fuels at COP31.

Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific monitoring group, warned that the planet was heading towards an “irrecoverable overshoot” of the 1.5C warming target unless governments rapidly cut emissions and stop supporting the fossil fuel industry. The United Nations said in September that the long-term 1.5C target would be missed in a matter of years.

Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, returning to a UN climate summit after years away, said the climate crisis was already a matter of life and death and repeated criticism of the annual talks. She also urged host Turkey to impose an energy embargo on Israel, alleging that oil transfers through Turkish territory were fuelling genocide in Palestine. Turkish authorities deny that any oil destined for Israel passes through Turkish ports.