Why COP31 may be the EU’s last great climate hurrah

 

Why COP31 may be the EU’s last great climate hurrah

 

A populist surge in elections next year threatens to undermine diplomatic efforts.

Vapor rises from the cooling towers of a coal-fired power station Niederaussem, Germany on November 9, 2026. | Ina Fassbender/AFP via Getty Images

 

This article is also available in: French

November 8, 2026 7:00 pm CET

By Zia Weise

https://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-election-gains-threaten-eu-climate-policy-cop31/

 

BRUSSELS — A possible string of far-right election victories next year could derail efforts to boost the European Union’s standing in international climate talks.

An EU plan to wield more influence over the annual United Nations climate conferences will be put to the test from Monday, when this year’s COP31 conference begins in the Turkish city of Antalya.

The bloc hopes to build up negotiating clout in time for the pivotal summit in 2028, when countries will face off over measures to step up global pollution-slashing efforts.

But there’s a risk that the EU’s unity on international climate issues will crumble before next year’s COP32 rolls around. 

Over the next 12 months, four of the bloc’s five largest countries — France, Spain, Italy and Poland — will hold closely contested elections where far-right and populist parties are expected to score high. Politicians from those camps made their disdain for the U.N. climate process plain in a European Parliament debate last month. 

“This COP will be a failure, like the previous ones,” said Marie-Luce Brasier-Clain, a lawmaker for the far-right party National Rally, whose candidate Marine Le Pen is the front-runner in France’s presidential election. 

A sign is seen near the entrance of the Antalya Expo venue, where COP31 will take place, on Sept. 30, 2026. | Goksel Yapar/AFP via Getty Images

“It's because you're pursuing an ideological agenda that cannot be implemented, on the basis of the Paris accords, without there being mass deindustrialization and social upheaval,” she told EU officials present at the debate. 

“Summit after summit, we see leaders taking private jets in order to explain that this big environmental problem is actually caused by tractors, that's what they tell the farmers,” said Mireia Borrás Pabón, a lawmaker from Spain’s far-right Vox, which hopes to enter a coalition with conservatives after the country’s November election. 

“Their priority, it seems, would be to eliminate fossil fuels… What does that mean? It means everything is more expensive,” she claimed. "Who do you think the COP really serves? Because it’s clear it’s not Europeans."

Far-right and right-wing MEPs from Poland, Germany and Austria echoed their views. At home, those parties are campaigning to slash national and EU measures to reduce emissions and scale back development aid, including for climate action abroad — changes that would undermine the bloc’s sway at COPs just as it seeks to solidify its leadership position. 

Centrist politicians see the risk, but they haven’t given up hope. 

“We have been seeing the United States turning the back on the fight for climate change and also climate science, and I could be worried that we also will see other countries also within the European Union take the same path,” Danish Climate Minister Samira Nawa told POLITICO. But the victory of many pro-climate Democrats in the U.S. midterms might signal a shift, she added. “Hopefully we can see the same within Europe.” 

Strategic shift 

EU governments vowed to step up their diplomatic efforts after they were left isolated at last year’s COP30 in Brazil. Ministers met several times earlier this year to discuss how the EU could improve its conference preparations, as well as its messaging. 

“There's been a lot of work during the past year, both during the Cyprus presidency [of the Council of the EU] and now during the Irish presidency to ensure that we become even better prepared,” said Mattias Frumerie, Sweden’s climate ambassador. 

The outcome was a tighter negotiating stance, a decision to cluster all country pavilions in the conference event space into a single “EU village” to project greater influence and a first-ever joint communications strategy for COP31 to speak with one voice. 

“COP31 will be a contest of narratives as much as a negotiation,” reads the strategy, seen by POLITICO. The EU should position itself as “constructive, not confrontational… confident, not triumphalist… listening, not lecturing… forward-looking, not defensive… multilateral, not transactional… relatable and accessible.” 

The EU and its governments have also sought to build alliances and increase their outreach ahead of COP31, diplomats say. 

The idea is to treat the annual negotiations as a long game, looking ahead at what’s known as the second Global Stocktake (GST2) in 2028 — an exercise to assess progress toward the Paris Agreement's goals and course-correct where necessary. The first such stocktake in 2023 resulted in a landmark agreement to transition away from fossil fuels.

The Danish Alternative Party climate change-themed election posters outside Christiansborg Palace on Oct. 22, 2022. | James Brooks/AFP via Getty Images

“The intent… is to start looking at a multi-annual approach to how COP is done by the EU, start looking towards GST2 and try to see the longer-term program that we have,” a senior European climate negotiator said. 

Political and economic trends across the EU, however, risk undermining those efforts. 

“We’re seeing it partly already … just from the conversations we’ve had in the past couple of months, which have been quite public as well, that some member states sense that the policies that we put in place to drive the transition are becoming too costly for their companies,” Frumerie said. 

Price pressures and the rise of the far right are pushing many governments toward a more cautious stance on climate policy. 

Shrinking fiscal space is also pushing many European countries to cut back on overseas aid, putting their contributions to the global climate finance goal agreed at COP29 at risk. Funding from developed countries for developing nations is a core principle of fairness in the U.N. talks, and frustrations over looming shortfalls tend to obstruct agreement on the kind of ambitious climate action demanded by the EU. 

A string of far-right victories over the coming year could supercharge those shifts. 

Ballot bonanza 

The first major election takes place just after COP31 wraps, on Nov. 29 in Spain. The conservative People’s Party, leading the polls, is in talks to enter a coalition with the far-right Vox to replace a Socialist government that has overseen a surge in renewable energy deployment and pushed for ambitious climate action at the EU level. 

Vox has called for a widespread rollback of the European Green Deal and in a 2025 policy program demanded Spain’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement while supporting a “disengagement” from COP decisions. While the People’s Party hasn’t adopted such strong positions, it has teamed up with the far right to block climate action in the past, for example in a failed bid to veto the EU’s new 2040 emissions-cutting goal. 

Next up is France, which will hold a presidential election in April and May next year. 

Le Pen, who leads the polls by a large margin, recently pledged to “achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and comply with the Paris Agreement” in a speech aimed at reassuring financial markets about her candidacy. She has also sought to distance herself from her far-right party’s history of climate denialism. 

But her party wants to axe €2.1 billion in development aid, including climate finance, and repeal a law that bans drilling for new oil and gas reserves on French soil — a move at odds with international commitments to cut back on fossil fuels. It also wants to impose a moratorium on new solar and wind farms, betting mostly on nuclear energy. 

“We need to build strategic [oil and gas] reserves and secure supplies while we wait for the electrification of energy use,” National Rally lawmaker Alexandre Loubet told POLITICO. “There is natural gas in my constituency, but the government refuses to exploit it.”

A demonstrator holds a large sign during a procession in Paris on Oct. 31, 2026. | Laurent Caron/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

After the summer, Poland will head to the polls, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s center-right coalition trying to fight off the nationalist Law and Justice Party. 

Under Tusk, Poland has invested in accelerating its switch away from coal and stepped up its involvement in COPs — in Antalya, as last year, its minister has been asked by the conference hosts to co-lead global talks on ensuring a fair energy transition. Meanwhile, the PiS fiercely campaigns against core EU climate policies and wants to retain the country’s coal generation. It has cast the bloc as misguided and isolated on the global stage. 

“We are negotiating with the whole world [at COP31], so we need to answer a couple of questions. Why are we alone as the European Union? Why won't the world contribute to the implementation of those ambitions?” said PiS lawmaker Anna Zalewska at the European Parliament debate. 

Finally, Italy will vote before the end of the year. Right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is aiming for a second term, has used her COP appearances to condemn “environmental radicalism” and has sought to weaken core EU climate policies, but has remained broadly supportive of diplomatic efforts. 

“Depending on the outcome of the elections, it doesn't make the situation for and within the EU easier,” Ottmar Edenhofer, a German economist who advises the bloc on climate policy, told reporters in a pre-COP press conference. 

Still, Denmark’s Nawa expressed hope that any party winning elections in Europe would try to “make a secure life for people all around the world but also within the European Union.” 

“No matter what government, no matter what politicians are in power,” she said, “we have to solve these crises.” 

Nicolas Camut contributed reporting from Paris. 

 

Spain’s conservatives promise to relax climate rules if they win election

 

Spain’s conservatives promise to relax climate rules if they win election

 

Madrid’s role as the EU’s loudest climate champion could end at a snap election later this month.

 

Alberto Núñez Feijóo participates in a campaign event in Valladolid, Spain on Nov. 7, 2026 | Cesar Manso/AFP via Getty Images

 

November 9, 2026 6:40 pm CET

By Nacho Alarcón and Diego Rodríguez Veiga

https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-election-favorites-say-madrid-must-avoid-impossible-climate-timeline/

 

MADRID — Spain's center-right People’s Party has pledged to “put a stop to the imposition of unrealistic timelines” for climate goals if it wins the national elections on Nov. 29, a significant pivot from the Sánchez government’s pro-green policies.

The PP, the favorite to win the vote, said decarbonization is an "essential goal for Europe," but promised to push for an "orderly, realistic, and fair transition," according to the energy chapter of the party's manifesto obtained by POLITICO’s Madrid Playbook.

The manifesto said it’s time "to reassess the pace of progress" in the clean energy transition "without dogmatism," while conceding there are “environmental, geostrategic and economic reasons” behind the decarbonization strategy.

Spain under Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been one of the bloc's most influential cheerleaders for ambitious climate goals, advocating to protect key EU policies like the Emissions Trading System, pollution reduction targets and the phase-out of gasoline cars.

But the PP's manifesto shows that would change if the EU's fourth-largest economy votes for a conservative government led by PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

Polls point to a clear majority for a coalition between the PP and Vox, a far-right party which is highly hostile to climate policies and is rising in the polls — potentially giving it significant weight in the next cabinet.

Feijóo’s team advocates assessing and relaxing Spain's climate policy sector by sector, considering three factors: “What is happening in the rest of the world, the technology that is available at the moment, and changes in demand.”

“We will not impose unnecessary obligations and will remove those that harm competitiveness, industry, or employment,” the document adds.

The PP has taken a more skeptical approach to EU climate policy than many of its fellow conservatives in other countries. In November 2025, for example, it voted against the 2040 climate goal in the European Parliament, breaking ranks with most of the EU's center-right umbrella group, the European People’s Party.

Alberto Nadal, a former secretary of state for energy and for budget under the previous PP government, is the key figure on energy in Feijóo’s team and the mind behind the manifesto’s energy chapter. According to a PP official, he also considered external contributions to the manifesto from experts.  

In a March interview with public broadcaster RNE, Nadal criticized the EU's “almost Taliban-like or radical” decarbonization strategy. In a recent interview with ElEconomista, Nadal, seen as a possible minister in a future conservative government, shifted his attention to energy prices and industry, without discussing climate or decarbonization.

Nuclear and data centers

The manifesto also proposes extending the operating lifespans of five nuclear plants “with the approval of the Nuclear Safety Council.”

It also points to a change of direction on data centers if there’s a PP-led government, pledging to resolve issues that “are hindering the grid connection” of data centers within 18 months.

The Socialist government has drafted a decree, expected to be approved before the Nov. 29 snap election, that would tie data centers’ access to the electricity grid to sustainability and digital sovereignty requirements. Nadal has already stated that a conservative government will repeal the decree, which he said represents “the end of Spain's technological future”.

The document also touched on the thorny issue of the 2025 national blackout and commits to updating the operating rules for the electricity system in the first six months in office. In light of what the PP considers a lack of transparency regarding the nationwide blackout, the party has pledged that "every serious incident" will be the subject of its own report.

On the circular economy, the conservative party signals that it won’t “impose additional obligations, accelerate timelines, or squander the investments, infrastructure, and capabilities that Spain already possesses.” That wording casts doubt over the implementation of the country's deposit return scheme.

 

The French fridge hacks were relatively unsophisticated. An AI-enabled attack would raise the stakes

 

Analysis

The French fridge hacks were relatively unsophisticated. An AI-enabled attack would raise the stakes

Dan MilmoGlobal technology editor

‘Not particularly complex’ defrosting hack has been attributed to Iran, with presumption it is linked to others across Europe

 

Mon 9 Nov 2026 19.40 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/nov/09/cyber-attack-french-supermarket-freezers-iran-europe

 

Iranian hackers like to send a message.

In 2023 a state-backed group interrupted TV streaming services in the United Arab Emirates to broadcast a deepfake report on the war in Gaza. In the same year, hackers affiliated with Iran displayed the slogan “down with Israel” on the screens of water-control equipment made by an Israeli firm.

Now France has attributed an attack on supermarket fridges to hackers operating under the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a key branch of Iran’s military establishment.

There was no message this time, but the disruption made headlines around the world. Some refrigerators had their temperature turned up so high they caught fire. ‌In the hours after the hack, supermarket employees dumped piles of perished meat and melted ice-cream into rubbish containers.

France’s foreign minister described it as an act of “unprecedented scale and unprecedented aggression” and promised “Europe-wide sanctions” would be imposed against those responsible.

View image in fullscreen

An employee fills boxes of perished goods outside an Intermarche supermarket in Paris the day after the cyber-attack. Photograph: Lucien Libert/Reuters

It follows attacks on industrial freezers at an Israeli food production plant in May and a wave of freezer malfunctions that spoiled food at US military bases in August that are now reportedly being treated as a suspected hack. Those attacks have not been officially attributed to Iran, but the French announcement is the first to implicate the state in this type of hack.

 

Rafe Pilling, a senior director at Sophos, a cybersecurity firm, said the relatively unsophisticated nature of the attack – hackers used default passwords to access fridge controls – was in line with Iranian capabilities. “The attacks themselves were not particularly complex,” he said.

Pilling said there was now a presumption the French attacks and a wave of rogue defrosting hacks across Europe last week were linked.

Hostile cyber operations against the west tend to come from a vexatious quartet of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. All have different aims and characteristics: China has focused on industrial espionage and mass data gathering, Russia on disrupting enemy infrastructure and spreading disinformation, and North Korea on hacking crypto exchanges because it needs money. Iran, according to Pilling, wants to put a shot across the bow of its enemies.

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Boxes of perished goods outside an Intermarche supermarket in Paris the day after the cyber-attack. Photograph: Lucien Libert/Reuters

 

“In general Iran uses cyber-attacks to project power internationally and to signal their political displeasure with regional and international adversaries,” Pilling said.

The fridge hacks came as the UK’s national cybersecurity centre warned the country is in the “foothills” of a new level of cyber threat – and should expect a “huge rise” in the volume of incidents. The main concern is AI, a technology now capable of highlighting previously unforeseen flaws in IT systems and helping attackers plan and carry out attacks.

However, the underlying context of the fridge attacks is not AI but geopolitics. After all, the refrigeration system vulnerabilities were relatively easy to find and exploit. But a combination of groundbreaking technology and tense global relations makes for an alarming landscape.

 

France blames Iran for massive cyberattack on supermarkets | DW News

COP 31: ‘Countries Need Plan For An Orderly Exit From Fossil Fuels’ | Pelin Zorlu

How emerging economies are winning the race to electrify | DW News

 

Cop31 must deliver climate progress that people can see is real, host says

 

Cop31 must deliver climate progress that people can see is real, host says

 

High-stakes talks involving 190 countries begin on Monday as world grapples with El Niño supercharged by fossil fuels

 

Adam Morton in Melbourne, and Fiona Harvey, Oliver Milman and Graham Readfearn in Antalya

Sun 8 Nov 2026 13.24 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/nov/08/cop31-climate-summit-deliver-progress-real-host-says

 

The Cop31 summit must produce progress, “a tangible outcome ... that people can see is real”, its host has said as scores of world leaders and representatives of close to 190 countries gather in Turkey for the UN climate talks.

The high-stakes meeting begins on Monday, as countries around the world grapple with the strongest El Niño weather system on record, supercharged by fossil fuels, which is set to take hundreds of thousands of lives and cause damage costing trillions of dollars.

Friction is expected between the rich and poor worlds over who pays for the impacts of the climate crisis, and the slow pace of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Temperatures have broken records this year, surpassing the limit of 1.5C above preindustrial levels aimed for in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Adão Soares Barbosa, the chair of the Least Developed Countries, a negotiating group of 44 nations, said: “Keeping 1.5C within reach by minimising the duration and magnitude of the overshoot, delivering accessible and predictable climate finance, strengthening adaptation, and addressing loss and damage [caused to poor countries by extreme weather] are not political choices but matters of survival. The credibility of the Paris agreement will be measured not by promises made, but by commitments fulfilled, and lives protected in vulnerable countries.”

View image in fullscreen

Although the summit is being held in Turkey, the formal negotiations will be presided over by Australia. Photograph: Sandro Basili/Shutterstock

Unusually, the talks will have dual hosts: they will take place in the Turkish city of Antalya but the formal negotiations will be presided over by Australia, following a compromise reached last year over their competing bids.

Chris Bowen, Australia’s climate and energy minister and president of negotiations for Cop31, told the Guardian in an interview: “We need a tangible outcome focused on implementation [of emissions cuts and finance] that people can see is real. We need progress, it needs to be a step forward on previous Cops.”

 

Australia also wants a “strong, ambitious outcome” to raise the plight of low-lying countries in the Pacific region for whom the climate crisis poses an existential threat. “We need to finally elevate some of the issues so important to our Pacific family,” Bowen said. “[Only] 0.2% of the world’s available climate finance goes to small island developing states for adaptation, for countries whose very existence is at stake.”

But climate advocates and more than 500 scientists in Australia said Australia must stop approving coalmines and gas projects if it wanted to escape the charge of hypocrisy.

The summit will have a notable absentee, with the US refusing to send a delegation for the second year in a row. The Trump administration wants no part of “extremist climate policies” embraced by other countries, according to a White House spokesperson.

Donald Trump expressed glee shortly before the US midterm elections about the huge profits made by oil and gas companies due to the Iran war, which he started and has caused an increase in living costs around the world. “I don’t give a damn,” the president said at a recent rally in Georgia. “I’m going to say it: we’re making a frickin’ fortune.”

However, a group of 20 Democratic members of Congress have made the trip to Antalya, buoyed by their party’s stunning success in the US midterms last week that will enable them to stymie Trump’s attempts to dismantle pollution rules and withhold financial support for clean energy.

Developing countries and civil society will seek to put climate finance and justice at the heart of the Cop31 talks. Rukiya Khamis, the east Africa programme manager at the 350.org campaigning group, said: “Across east Africa, people are facing the devastating impacts of a climate crisis they did not cause. From prolonged droughts to destructive floods, we are losing homes, livelihoods and access to food and water. Yet the money needed to respond to these impacts remains out of reach for many of the countries and communities most affected. It is fundamentally unjust that those least responsible are being left to carry the greatest costs.”

 

This summer more than 50,000 people died in Europe due to heatwaves, severe wildfire smoke shrouded swathes of North America and a glacier collapse in Nepal triggered a landslide that caused more than 1,500 deaths, while the El Niño weather event, described as “staggering” by scientists and still to reach its peak, is gathering strength.

However, while the pace of progress on cutting global emissions has been slow, the Iran war has spurred many countries to see fossil fuels as expensive and vulnerable to shocks, while renewables continue to plummet in price.

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Drone view of the Cop31 venue in Antalya, Turkey. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters

Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said before the talks: “Climate impacts hit every population and every economy harder each year. [But] almost every major economy, and many medium-sized and smaller economies, now see climate action as a central driver of economic growth, jobs, and affordable and secure energy.”

Cop host Turkey also wants more countries to switch to electric technologies, such as electric vehicles and heat pumps, as these are many times more efficient than their fossil fuel counterparts. A target for 35% of global final energy to come from electricity by 2035 will be on the table, but faces opposition from some.

Both presidency countries rely heavily on fossil fuels. Australia is one of the world’s leading exporters of coal and liquefied natural gas. The centre-left Labor government has targets to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, and have more than 80% of its electricity generated by solar and wind by 2030, but is off track to meet them.

Labor also faces a political threat from the resurgent rightwing One Nation party, which dismisses climate science. One Nation and the Liberal and National party coalition want to scrap the net zero goal.

The UK energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, said: “This summer, we all felt it: climate change is here, in Britain, now. No country can tackle it alone, which is why Cop31 matters. The answer to high bills and climate change is the same – more clean, homegrown power, creating good jobs and warmer homes. Cop31 is about Britain’s national interest.”