COP31: Traffic chaos, Venezuelan oil and Greta Thunberg

Detailed summary

From traffic chaos to Venezuela defending oil and the return of activist Greta Thunberg, AFP takes a look at what's happening Thursday at the COP31 summit. The UN's annual climate…

From American mayors showing up in place of the US administration to cheering crowds for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, AFP takes a look at what's happening 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.

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 various US ex-officials, state and local elected officials made the trip to Antalya, including former secretary of state and climate envoy John Kerry, former vice president Al Gore and several governors and mayors.

"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.

"The rhetoric that you hear coming out of Washington is a minority of people," he said, adding a dig over the Democrats' success in the US midterm election: "They found out how big a minority it was last week, and that will only continue to grow."

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

Environmentalists praise the veteran leftist, 81, for slashing deforestation in the Amazon and creating an Indigenous peoples ministry.

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