World leaders take stage at COP31 but big names missing

Résumé détaillé

World leaders will take the stage at COP31 in Turkey but some prominent names are missing from this year's annual UN climate summit even as global warming intensifies.

World leaders will take the stage at COP31 in Turkey but some prominent names are missing from this year's annual UN climate summit even as global warming intensifies.

The two-week conference kicked off earlier this week in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, with governments under pressure to tackle the climate crisis after a year of heatwaves in Europe, deadly floods in Nepal and major wildfires in Indonesia.

Dozens of leaders will speak during the "high-level segment" taking place today and tomorrow, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian.

However, observers have pointed to the absence of some big names, with UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham the only leader from a G7 country scheduled to address the summit.

While European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen is coming to Antalya, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are skipping the event.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi are also absent from the most recent list.

"It is a shame that some of the bigger European leaders aren't coming. We need Europe to be showing up strongly at this COP," Cosima Cassel, a climate diplomacy expert at think-tank E3G, told AFP.

Wopke Hoekstra, the EU's top climate official, said the absences were "not completely atypical" as leaders may have "practical" reasons for not being able to attend a summit.

But he also told reporters in Brussels that "expectations are not necessarily high" for this climate conference.

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