Leaders gather in Turkey for U.N. climate summit after a disastrous year of extreme weather

ANTALYA, Turkey — World leaders, delegates and climate activists on Monday will begin negotiations on curbing climate change, which in the last year has led to rising temperatures, deadly heat waves in Europe and beyond, and has played a role in disasters like the devastating floods in Nepal.

This U.N. climate summit, called the Conference of the Parties, or COP31, also comes as the war in Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, pushing up global prices of gasoline and oil and myriad products made with them, such as fertilizers and pesticides. The disruption has pushed governments to rethink energy policies, including increased investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

Delegates, meeting in the Turkish Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, will come under pressure to develop new pledges for climate action while implementing previous promises. The stakes are high: climate scientists say global average temperature rise will exceed 1.5 C (2.7 F) since the early 1800s.

Limiting temperature rise to that threshold was a goal established during the 2015 Paris Agreement. Since then, it’s been a focus of international climate negotiations. That the goal is no longer realistic underscores how difficult it’s been for the world to…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/business