Venezuela’s Rodriguez Defends Right to Expand Oil at COP31 in Antalya
Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez told the COP31 climate talks in Türkiye that her country will strengthen its oil industry, as leaders voiced clashing demands over fossil fuels, finance and electrification. Negotiators now face the task of drafting a deal all sides can accept.
Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez told the COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Türkiye, that her country has a sovereign right to strengthen its oil industry, in a speech during two days of leaders' addresses on November 11 and 12, 2026.
"We reaffirm our sovereign right to strengthen our energy and oil industry as a driver of our national development," Rodriguez said. She spoke after UN leaders had made the case for ending the age of fossil fuels.
Her remarks were one of several competing positions aired at the summit. Fossil fuel producers said oil, gas and coal should stay in use.
Clashing demands
Small island states, among the most exposed to rising seas, pleaded for urgent cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. Leaders from the Bahamas, Tuvalu, the Solomon Islands and Saint Lucia called for swift action on Thursday.
"Major emitters must move beyond the usual promises," said Saint Lucia's Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre.
European leaders lined up behind a proposal to expand global electrification. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham backed a Turkish plan to lift electricity's share of world energy use to 35 per cent by 2035, from a little over a fifth now. Turkey has not said whether the extra power would be renewable.
Burnham pointed to energy supply disruptions from the US-Israeli war with Iran and Russia's war with Ukraine. "The shift to clean energy is the only route to energy security," he said.
Developing countries repeated long-standing requests for rich nations to provide more finance to help them move to cleaner energy.
A hard drafting task
Host Türkiye and negotiations lead Australia must reconcile positions that cannot all be met. They also face a political climate in which wars and inflation have pushed climate concerns down the agenda.
Chris Bowen, Australia's COP31 president of negotiations, said his role was to steer consensus toward "the strongest, most ambitious possible outcome". Asked what a good deal would look like, he said he had "many more hours of consultations with partners to do".
A UN report last month found the world is already on course to break the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming limit that countries agreed to pursue under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, speaking on the sidelines, offered a bleaker verdict. "The planet is not dying. It is being killed," she said. "No one is coming to our rescue."
