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

Israel 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.