Israel excluded from COP31 climate summit in Turkey over Gaza war, Turkish minister says

NOVEMBER 11, 2026 16:27Israel was not invited to the COP31 climate summit, which Turkey is hosting this year, Turkish Environment Minister and COP President Murat Kurum announced on Tuesday, citing Israel's actions in Gaza as the reason for its exclusion.“As the host country for the leaders’ summit, we did not send an invitation to Israel,” Murat told Turkish media. “Of course, we will discuss the climate and climate justice here. We say that there can be no climate justice where peace does not prevail.”The chairman of the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority, Zaghloul Samha, told The National that the decision was “a political issue, not a technical issue.”The exclusion comes as climate negotiations involving nearly 200 countries seek agreement on a Turkish proposal to increase the share of electricity in global energy use and revive stalled efforts to move away from fossil fuels. However, statements by world leaders at the summit have increasingly focused on geopolitical conflicts and Israel's role in the region, raising questions about whether climate discussions are being overshadowed by political disputes."A year ago, the planet left COP30 invigorated... [but] this momentum has dropped off at the start of this year. Climate change disappeared from the speeches and documents from global leadership," Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose country hosted last year's conference, told the summit. "We started talking more about weapons and tariffs than the survival of future generations. The planet cannot be at the mercy of hegemonic struggles."Conference participants walk past the Turkey pavilion on the opening day at the COP31 UNFCCC Climate Conference on November 09, 2026 in Antalya, Turkey. (credit: Burak Kara/Getty Images)UN chief warns of worsening climate crisis as global temperatures riseUN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders earlier in the day that the international community's slow response to climate change had put the world on a path to destruction and that urgent action was needed to avert the worst consequences. A UN report last month found that the world was on course to exceed the 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit warming limit that countries had agreed to pursue under the Paris Agreement to prevent the worst effects of climate change.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also used the summit to criticize Israel over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, accusing it of preventing the delivery of containers to Palestinians displaced by the conflict.“Today, we are asking Israel for containers. But right now, our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza are unfortunately being forced to live in tents surrounded by mud,” he said, addressing recent rains that have flooded tents housing displaced Palestinians. “Are these people not human? Are they not even considered deserving of a tent? We want to send containers, but we are not being given permission to do so.”The IDF confirmed earlier this week that 91,000 tents and over 8,200 trucks carrying winter supplies have entered Gaza, following criticism from Hamas over weather conditions damaging tents.Greenpeace Israel used the occasion to criticize the government over its fossil fuel policies, accusing it of “opening the Mediterranean Sea to more gas companies and continuing to endanger the environment and climate targets.”Greenpeace criticizes Israel's expansion of Mediterranean gas explorationThe environmental organization was responding to an announcement by the Energy Ministry on Monday that American oil and gas company Murphy Oil would join gas exploration efforts in the Mediterranean after Israel granted the company and Israeli firm Ratio six new licenses.“Although Israel is absent from the conference, the decisions made there will also affect our future. The conference is a key tool in the global effort to tackle the climate crisis, with governments making decisions on reducing emissions and financing preparations for the impacts of the crisis,” the organization said. “In a year in which the war with Iran, alongside geopolitical tensions, has exposed the risks associated with oil and gas, and even led to ‘fossil fuel inflation,’ the climate conference offers renewed hope for change.“At stake are accelerating the transition from fossil fuels, the biggest driver of the climate crisis, to renewable energy; protecting communities that contribute the least to the crisis but suffer its consequences the most; and halting the destruction of forests."Iran's president criticizes Israel and US at COP31 climate summitWhile Israel was not invited to the conference, and the US was not in attendance, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was present and used the summit to raise Tehran's grievances against Israel and the United States, according to an announcement by the Iranian government on Wednesday."In these meetings, we will discuss the legitimate positions of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the crimes committed by the United States and Israel in the region, as well as how they have witnessed the consequences of their heinous actions in elections in their own countries, at the hands of their own people," Pezeshkian said. "Not only in the United States and Israel, but also in Europe, the results of the elections that have taken place have all been contrary to the wishes of warmongers, aggressors and those who falsely speak of democracy and human rights while acting against all these principles.”Follow us on Google