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UN leaders face mounting pressure to move beyond rhetoric as Nepal’s deadly glacier collapse and record global disasters expose the cost of climate inaction.
With the Iran war fuelling the worst energy crisis in history, experts say UNGA and COP31 must link energy security, loss and damage finance and electrification to concrete, trackable commitments, not vague promises.
As more than 1,300 people have been killed and thousands remain missing after a glacier collapse triggered catastrophic flooding in Nepal and China’s Tibet region, Nepal has called for a “global effort” to confront the worsening climate crisis.
The disaster comes amid a year of extreme weather, including more than 1 million hectares of land burnt in Europe during the continent’s record 2025 wildfire season and successive storms across Asia. New modelling puts average annual global insured catastrophe losses at $171 billion, up $19 billion from a year earlier.
The scale of the disasters, coupled with the fallout from the US war with Iran and uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz, is expected to shape discussions as world leaders gather in New York City for the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) from September 22 to 28, before governments turn to the 31st Conference of Parties (COP31) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in Antalya from November 9 to 20.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has described the Iran conflict as the biggest energy crisis in history, with disruptions to flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a major route for global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.
Against this backdrop, climate experts say UNGA will be an important test of whether governments can connect the immediate energy and cost of living crisis with longer term climate action.
The 81st UNGA opened on September 8 under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations That Delivers for All”. Its high-level week runs from September 22 to 29, with the general debate scheduled for September 22 to 26 and September 28. A high-level meeting on climate action and just transition is scheduled for September 23, while a high-level plenary on the existential threat posed by sea level rise will take place on September 24.
For Jennifer Morgan, senior fellow at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and former Climate Envoy for Germany, the immediate question is whether leaders will use UNGA to demonstrate that they understand the urgency of intensifying climate action.
“The climate impacts have really pushed us into new territory this year. They’re no longer a future scenario. They’re very much here and now, and it is everywhere,” Morgan said at a virtual press conference on September 16.
She said leaders will also need to respond to Nepal’s call for international support and called on Türkiye and Australia to use the period ahead of COP31 to set out a precise vision for the summit.
Ajay Mathur, professor at the School of Public Policy, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, former director general of the International Solar Alliance and former India climate negotiator, at the same press conference, said the Nepal disaster had demonstrated that the climate and energy crises were compounding each other in real time.
He pointed to the insurance industry’s projected annual losses of about $170 billion, up $19 billion from the previous year, saying the costs of climate inaction were already being borne by national budgets and households.
According to Mathur, UNGA and COP31 were likely to see renewed pressure to fully resource the Loss and Damage Fund, alongside demands for greater investment in electricity grids and continued momentum on the energy transition.
“The current energy shocks” should not result in permanent fossil fuel dependence, he said, but should instead help accelerate the transition towards cleaner energy systems.
Nathalie Jones, senior policy advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), said the energy shock had strengthened the case for moving away from fossil fuels.
According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, fossil fuel importers had paid an additional $330 billion for crude oil, oil products and liquefied natural gas during the first six months of the war compared with prewar market forecasts.
Jones said the response should include renewable energy, energy efficiency, electrification, grids and energy storage. At UNGA, she said, governments should provide signals on the transition away from fossil fuels, including through national transition roadmaps and immediate policy measures.
She also said the fossil fuel roadmap emerging from the Brazilian COP30 presidency will need to be translated into national action ahead of COP31.
COP31 will take place in Antalya from November 9 to 20. Türkiye will host COP31, preside over the summit and lead its Action Agenda, while Australia will lead the negotiations through its President of Negotiations, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen.
The division of responsibilities makes the relationship between the negotiated process and the Action Agenda a central issue for the summit.
Umit Sahin, senior scholar and coordinator of climate change studies at Istanbul Policy Center, highlighted three main priorities for the Turkish presidency: making Antalya an “implementation COP”, advancing electrification and addressing climate finance.
The implementation focus is intended to move climate commitments towards what the presidency describes as tangible and trackable progress. Sahin said this should not come at the expense of negotiated outcomes needed to implement the Paris Agreement, keep the 1.5 degree Celsius goal within reach and advance a new science based Global Stocktake cycle.
The second priority is electrification. Türkiye has proposed a “35 by 35” target to increase electricity’s share of final energy consumption from just over 20 per cent today to 35 per cent by 2035, supported by expanded renewable energy, grids and storage. The target is officially part of the COP31 Global Climate Action Agenda.
The presidency has also announced a target to halve the growth of global waste by 2035 and a resilient cities target to reduce energy consumption intensity in the building sector by at least 25 per cent by 2035.
Sahin’s third priority is finance. Türkiye’s proposed Climate Implementation Bridge is intended to connect national priorities and project preparation with existing sources of climate finance rather than create another climate fund.
Mathur said electrification would need to extend beyond electric vehicles to include affordable cooling, industrial supply chains, heat pumps and modern electricity grids. He said the key requirement from COP31 would be “concrete measurable commitments” that countries can sign on to. “Diplomatic rhetoric alone will not lower electricity bills or stop the glacial melts that occurred in Nepal.”
The Nepal disaster is also expected to intensify discussions around loss and damage. Mathur said climate vulnerable developing countries had been “rattled” by the disaster and were likely to push for greater resourcing of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP31. The discussion is particularly significant as the fund remains short of the resources needed to meet the scale of climate related losses.
Morgan said governments should consider additional mechanisms for raising finance, including solidarity levies and other measures to generate revenue for loss and damage and adaptation.
The issue is likely to feature alongside discussions on the Global Goal on Adaptation and climate finance at COP31.
The energy crisis has made energy security and climate action increasingly intertwined, but the transition itself is being affected by geopolitical tensions.
Laurence Tubiana, chief executive officer of the European Climate Foundation and former French climate diplomat, said the current crisis was creating pressure on governments to address immediate energy affordability while maintaining longer term transition plans.
She also pointed to tensions around clean energy supply chains, particularly the dependence of countries on China for technologies needed for electrification. “Geopolitics of value chain” issues, she said, were making the transition more complicated because countries were seeking greater technological and energy independence.
Tubiana also said countries needed to make the economic costs of climate impacts more visible in national policy making, arguing that the consequences of inaction were increasingly measurable.
For COP31, this places the electrification agenda alongside questions of fossil fuel dependence, energy affordability, technology access, climate finance and the credibility of the two presidencies. The UNFCCC has said Türkiye and Australia are pursuing negotiations and the Action Agenda as separate but complementary tracks, with the Action Agenda intended to help implement decisions reached through the negotiations.