Former United States climate envoy John Kerry told COP31 in Antalya on Tuesday that the United States will return to a leadership role in the global climate fight, as Brazil presented a roadmap for moving the world beyond fossil fuels and a new scientific report showed fossil-fuel emissions dipping in 2026. The John Kerry COP31 fossil fuel roadmap session brought together the United Nations chief, the UN climate chief and former COP presidents in one of the most closely watched moments of the conference so far.
Brazil, which held the COP30 presidency last year, presented the roadmap at a high-level session on Tuesday 10 November. The document aims to turn the global promise made in Dubai in 2023 — to transition away from coal, oil and gas — into practical national plans.
A roadmap, not a prescription
The roadmap was first released on 3 November and formally presented at COP31 on 10 November, according to UN News. It is voluntary and not a new binding climate agreement. Instead, it works as a toolkit: each country assesses its own dependence on coal, oil and gas and chooses from a menu of measures, including scrapping fossil-fuel subsidies, halting new fossil-fuel power plants, and cutting the flaring and venting of gas at oil and gas sites.
It looks at three connected challenges: fossil-fuel demand, fossil-fuel production and supply, and the economic consequences of moving away from them. Countries are asked to plan and assess their energy systems by 2028, and then to work together to reduce fossil-fuel supply from 2031. The initiative builds on a commitment supported by more than 80 countries at COP30 in Belém last year.
Germany, the Netherlands and France have already published national roadmaps, and the Netherlands announced 600 million US dollars in new funding to support countries developing their own transition roadmaps through the NDC Partnership.
The high-level session brought together UN Secretary-General António Guterres, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago, former UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa, John Kerry, Tuvalu Climate Minister Maina Talia and International Renewable Energy Agency Director-General Francesco La Camera.
Kerry: “We need plans, not promises”
“It’s long past time to stop treating the transition away from fossil fuels as taboo or intractable,” Guterres said at the launch. “Now, here at COP31, we must move from discussing the transition to organising it, financing it, and delivering it.” He called on countries to produce national plans with clear timelines and financing needs, and to show measurable progress by 2028.
Kerry, who signed the Paris Agreement for the United States as secretary of state and later served as President Joe Biden’s special envoy for climate, warned that investment was still pouring into new oil and gas fields despite years of climate commitments. “The hard truth is that fossil fuels story is still moving in the wrong direction,” he said. “We don’t need more promises. We need plans.”
“We have to make sure that we really do a roadmap,” Kerry added, “and we’ll find all kinds of ways to pressure and pull those CEOs to the table who are slow to move their companies.” He also described clean energy as a security question: “No country can block the sun from shining. No one can block any wind from blowing. Clean energy is not just a climate strategy; it is a national security strategy, an economic strategy, and a way to give countries much greater control over their own futures.”
Kerry spoke after a sweeping Democratic victory in last week’s United States midterm elections, and said Americans were committed to taking back their future. “We will build and rebuild our partnerships as we do that,” he said.
The United States itself sent no official delegation to COP31, for the second year running, after formally leaving the Paris Agreement in January. According to Health Policy Watch, Washington is due in February to become the first country ever to withdraw from the UN climate convention itself.
Emissions dip — but war, not policy, drove it
The roadmap session came as the annual Global Carbon Budget, compiled by more than 140 scientists and presented at COP31, found that global emissions from coal, oil and gas are set to fall by 0.4 percent this year, to 38.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. It is the first drop since the COVID-19 pandemic, led by a 1.9 percent fall in emissions from oil, as soaring oil prices and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the war on Iran cut demand.
Forecasts from the International Energy Agency for 2026 have swung from a 281-million-tonne rise in fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions before the war to a 191-million-tonne fall, according to an analysis by Carbon Brief.
Scientists behind the report warned that the dip may not last. Total carbon dioxide emissions still rose, from 42.8 billion to 43.3 billion tonnes, as peat fires and forest degradation in Southeast Asia drove up emissions from land use. Solar, wind and electric vehicles met about two-thirds of this year’s rise in energy demand, with the oil shock accounting for the rest.
“A decline in fossil CO2 emissions is encouraging,” said Pierre Friedlingstein of the University of Exeter, who led the study. “But a reduction driven partly by geopolitical shocks is not a sustainable climate solution.” The world can emit just 150 billion more tonnes of carbon dioxide before warming passes 1.5°C — less than four years of emissions at current rates.
Guterres presses for a climate justice compact
On Wednesday 11 November, as world leaders arrived for the two-day leaders’ summit, Guterres proposed a new climate justice compact to help developing countries move away from fossil fuels while protecting those already suffering from climate change. Its four priorities are to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, protect vulnerable populations, deliver affordable climate finance and strengthen international cooperation. “Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs,” he said.
Brazil’s President Lula announced that Brazil would develop national roadmaps to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and end deforestation, building on the work of COP30 in the Amazon last year.
The voice of the least developed countries was also heard in Antalya. Their chair, Ambassador Adão Soares Barbosa of Timor-Leste, said the group backs Türkiye’s flagship target of lifting electricity’s share of final energy use to 35 percent by 2035, but cannot reach it without money, technology and training from developed countries. The biggest emitters must move off fossil fuels first, he said, and support for the poorest countries must come as grants, not loans.
The host country itself underlined the tensions at the heart of the summit: on opening day, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced two new oilfields in Türkiye’s southeastern Gabar region, holding an estimated 135 million barrels, and state oil company TPAO is projected to nearly triple its gas output by 2035, according to an analysis by Global Witness. Coal supplied 34 percent of Türkiye’s own electricity last year, according to the energy think tank Ember.
Whether the roadmap is mentioned in COP31’s final decision remains open. No new backers were announced at the launch, and some fossil-fuel producers are expected to resist any mention of it. Organisations from 88 countries have also demanded a new Belém-Antalya Mechanism to turn just-transition promises into action, covering decent jobs, workers’ rights, gender equality, human rights and the protection of Indigenous communities.
FAKTA
- What: Brazil’s COP30 presidency presented a roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels at COP31 in Antalya.
- When: First released on 3 November, formally presented on Tuesday 10 November 2026.
- Who spoke: UN Secretary-General António Guterres, UN climate chief Simon Stiell, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago, former UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa, former US climate envoy John Kerry, Tuvalu Climate Minister Maina Talia and IRENA chief Francesco La Camera.
- Status: Voluntary and non-binding — a toolkit, not a plan with deadlines or targets.
- Milestones: Countries to plan and assess energy systems by 2028, then work together to reduce fossil-fuel supply from 2031.
- Emissions: Fossil-fuel CO2 down 0.4 percent in 2026 to 38.2 billion tonnes, the first fall since COVID-19, according to the Global Carbon Budget 2026.
Conclusion
The roadmap session showed that the fossil-fuel question, left off COP31’s formal agenda, is back at the centre of the conference — carried there by Brazil, the UN chief and one of America’s most senior climate voices. Whether it becomes part of the summit’s final decision will be one of the tests of the second week in Antalya.
