00:15Welcome back to From the South and join us as we go to Turquia where the 31st
00:19United Nations Conference on Climate Change is underway with the goal of
00:23proposing solutions to the current global climate crisis. Our correspondent
00:27Junos Suner is in Antalya and will bring us new information on what's going on
00:32there. Hello Junos, what do you have for us at this hour?
00:36Hello, good evening from Antalya, Turquia, from the South of Turquia where the United
00:42Nations Conference on Climate Change, the COP31, is continuing on its second day. The day was marked
00:49by the key word electrification. There have been dozens of panels today here in the different
00:59parts of the Exposition Center. They were dealing with different topics like ecological agriculture,
01:07decarbonization, urban transport, also gender equality facing climate change. But the main,
01:17main work dominating the day was electrification. There was a press conference held by Simon Steel,
01:25who is the Executive Secretary General of the UN for Climate Change. And he said it is time to enter
01:33the
01:34age of electricity. Either we reconnect the grid, the global grid based on electricity or we get
01:44into the rising oil prices. And he said if we do not enter this age of electricity, we will have
01:56to live
01:56with rising oil prices and rising gas prices for a long time. He was supported by Murat Turun. He's the
02:09minister for environment and he is the president of the COP31. He proposed a certain concrete goal, said 35
02:21by 35. That means in the year 2035, according to this group, 35 percent of global energy consumption
02:32energy consumption will be electricity. That means lowering the rate of fuel oil or oil in general. That
02:41was a concrete proposal presented by Corum and he was supported by Chris Bowen. Now Chris Bowen is the
02:49president of the COP for negotiations from Australia. Turkey and Australia are co-hosting this event. Turkey has the
02:58organizational part and the presidency in general. Australia leads the negotiations between the
03:05delegations that are already taking place today here in Antalya. And Bowen said if we do not take this step
03:12to increase the share of electricity in global consumption, we will not be able to fulfill the limits
03:20on the goal to limit the global warming up by 1.5 degrees. That was a clear statement. He also
03:30said we had a
03:32share of electricity in the global energy consumption of 19 percent in 2015, and this year it has increased to
03:4224 percent, 23 percent, excuse me, but this has to go up to 35 percent. Bowen also placed the issue
03:52in the
03:52context of multilateralism. We said this is also a present for international organizations, for the global
03:59community, whether they will be able to pursue such a goal jointly. And of course the grand obstacle, besides of
04:08differences among the participating countries here, is the current administration in the United States.
04:15The United States government of Donald Trump has not sent any official delegation to the COP 31. Donald
04:25Trump is well known for his statement of the drill, Dave's drill, his emphasis on traditional energy sources
04:32and his negligence of any kind of climate change at all. So it is a question whether COP 31 will
04:41be able to
04:42construct a consensus among itself and whether as a next step will be able to convince the United States
04:51government. Here on behalf of the United States there are mayors, there are also some senators from the
04:57Democratic Party who have traveled on their own behalf, not representing the government, but they are
05:05here displaying sensitivity to climate change and to the proposals presented here. We will know more
05:12tomorrow on Wednesday when the leaders start arriving at the COP. Nine to five heads of state or heads of
05:20government are expected to take part on the 11th and 12th of November here on COP and they will negotiate
05:29and
05:29they will work on a joint decision regarding the proposal of electrification presented here by
05:37Turkey supported by Australia and also supported by the UN Secretary General for climate change. They all have
05:47this idea. We will see more about this idea tomorrow and the next days here in Antalya. Thank you. Thank
05:55you, Yunus, very much. We will be in contact with you to know more insights of COP 31. So thank
06:01you very much.
