The COP31 climate conference in Türkiye later this year could become "the summit where political commitments turn into measurable progress," a top German official said on Thursday.
The energy crisis triggered by the war in the Middle East has fueled calls for countries to shift away from fossil fuels and step up efforts to deploy renewable energy.
"The collective experience with the Strait of Hormuz, and how vulnerable most of us are to fossil-fuel price shocks, could make the decisive difference," German Environment Minister Carsten Schneider said.
"Climate action today is also about economic strength, security of supply and competitiveness."
Schneider's remarks came after a two-week annual U.N. climate change talks in the western German city of Bonn wrapped up.
Bonn is where texts are drafted and differences are narrowed ahead of the decisions taken by political leaders at the U.N.-sponsored COP31 climate talks, which are due to start Nov. 9 in Antalya, southern Türkiye.
Schneider said the Bonn meetings had shown that the Paris climate agreement remained the common benchmark despite geopolitical tensions. "Now its implementation must accelerate significantly," Schneider told dpa.
He called on more countries to submit ambitious new climate targets ahead of COP31. Türkiye will host the summit, while Australia will oversee the formal negotiations.
U.N. climate chief Simon Stiell said Thursday countries made some progress at the Bonn talks, but warned against backsliding as geopolitical tensions stalk negotiations.
In a statement, Stiell said "real strides" were made on issues including ensuring a "just transition" to ensure the shift to a low-carbon economy is fair and inclusive.
He also recalled that Türkiye unveiled a target to make electricity account for one-third of the world's energy demand by 2035.
The aim would be to shift transport, heavy industries, and home heating away from running on oil, coal and gas, to instead use technologies like electric industrial furnaces, electric cars and heat pumps.
"In key areas we've taken real strides forward," Stiell said, while acknowledging that "in others, we have seen some side-stepping and stalling. We've seen geopolitical tensions washing through these halls."
"We simply cannot afford to reopen previous decisions, to renegotiate existing targets, or to backslide," he said.
He warned countries against "cherry-picking" the global commitments that "suit tactically in the moment."
He cited commitments to science, the Paris Agreement's ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5C from preindustrial levels and pledges by rich nations to provide more climate finance to developing countries.
At the same time, environmental organizations gave the Bonn conference a mixed assessment.
They welcomed the proposal by the Turkish government to increase the global share of electricity in final energy consumption from 20% to 35% by 2035.
Laura Schafer from pressure group Germanwatch praised the initiative as a "positive sign," adding that it was "crucial to underpin this target with concrete national measures – including in Germany."
Oxfam climate expert Jan Kowalzig emphasized that "electrification is, in principle, an important step toward climate neutrality, but only if it is accompanied by a consistent transition to renewable energy."
On the other hand, the organizations agreed that the pace of the conference had been far too slow.
"We have witnessed structural paralysis here in Bonn," warned Greenpeace climate expert Jannes Stoppel. Negotiations were progressing in "baby steps" when "giant strides" were needed, he said.
Fentje Jacobsen of WWF Germany said climate finance had once again remained a major sticking point.
The climate crisis can only be halted if coal, oil and gas take a back seat and renewable energies shape the future, Jacobsen said.
"But here, too, concrete progress is lacking. We can see that in Germany as well. The federal government is currently putting on the brakes instead of pushing ahead with the energy transition at full speed," she said.
U.N.'s Stiell criticized what he described as a tendency for countries to wait for others to act first.
"In some negotiating rooms, we've heard a familiar tendency toward you-first-ism: Groups refusing to deliver commitments or allow the process to move forward unless others go first."
Representatives from several countries, including Switzerland, Sierra Leone and Pacific island states particularly affected by rising sea levels, complained at a press conference that facts about the climate crisis were increasingly being challenged during the negotiations.
They argued that the conferences were intended to find solutions to climate change, not to debate the current state of scientific knowledge.
Schneider backed those concerns and also criticized attacks on the scientific foundations of climate research.
"It is encouraging that a large number of countries from both the Global South and the Global North are standing together against this," he said.
More than 6,500 delegates from governments, the scientific community, business and civil society from almost all U.N. member states have attended this year's Bonn conference.
