Action to curb emissions and bolster resilience to the impacts of extreme weather needs similar urgency to international efforts to lift defense investments, according to the head of next month’s annual global climate change conference.
“The same responsibility, same determination, we expect each and every country to show in climate action,” Murat Kurum, Turkey’s environment minister and president-designate of the COP31 summit, told reporters Thursday in Fiji at preparatory talks ahead of the November event. “What does it mean to spend 5% for defense if you don’t have a country to live on? What does it mean to defend it?”
