Lula at COP31: Planet must not be held hostage to geopolitical rivalries

Detailed summary

Brazil's President Lula da Silva warns that wars, military spending, and tariffs sideline the climate emergency from the G7 and G20 agendas.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has warned world leaders at the UN climate summit in southern Türkiye that global ecological preservation cannot remain subordinated to geopolitical rivalries, cautioning that escalating conflicts and inflation threaten international environmental efforts.

"Climate change disappeared from the speeches and documents of global leaders at the G7 and G20 meetings, forums that bring together the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters. This concern turned into silence," Lula said on Wednesday during his opening address at the COP31 Leaders' Summit in Antalya.

The Brazilian president criticised the shift in global priorities toward armed conflict, arguing: "We started talking more about weapons and tariffs than the survival of future generations."

Lula lamented that global momentum has declined since COP30 in Belem, Brazil, where Indigenous peoples and forest defenders achieved historic popular participation.

He warned that some countries have increasingly treated the clean energy transition as a "hurdle to security and the prosperity of nations."

Lula warned that immediate pressures from wars and inflation make it harder for governments to confront looming climate disasters, but "the planet cannot be at the mercy of hegemonic struggles."

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