COP31: UN chief, US mayors, Greta and Lula crowds

Detailed summary

From the UN chief slamming fossil fuels to American mayors showing up in place of the US administration and cheering crowds for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva,…

From the UN chief slamming fossil fuels to American mayors showing up in place of the US administration and cheering crowds for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, here's what's happened Thursday at the COP31 summit.

The UN's annual climate conference, which started on Monday, runs until November 20 in the Turkish Mediterranean resort city of Antalya.

Guterres said it was "absurd" that nine oil majors would reap $95 billion in profits in a single quarter while ordinary people struggled to afford heating and fuel amid an energy crisis fueled by the Iran war.

"Governments need to protect the interests of their peoples — not the interests of a group of companies," he said at his final climate summit after a decade at the helm of the United Nations.

President Donald Trump, who pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, is unsurprisingly absent from the talks and sent no representative.

But former secretary of state and climate envoy John Kerry, former vice president Al Gore, and several governors and mayors made the trip to Antalya.

"Our message at COP is clear: mayors are closest to the people we serve, and when Washington steps back, we step up," said Vicki Veenker, mayor of Palo Alto, California.

The Americans snubbing the talks are "not any fun anyway," joked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, a Democrat whose party triumphed in last week's US midterm elections.

Lula, who narrowly won re-election last month, got a warm welcome from a cheering crowd at a civil society event.

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