High fossil fuel prices spread inflation ‘like a cancer’, UN climate negotiator tells Cop31

Simon Stiell makes opening address at summit in Turkey, where talks are under way about speeding up shift to electrification

A global fossil fuel price crisis is “spreading inflation like a cancer” around the planet, the UN’s chief climate negotiator, Simon Stiell, told the opening plenary of critical UN climate talks in Turkey.

Stiell joined Cop31 hosts Turkey and Australia, which is leading the negotiations, in promoting renewable energy and a new electrification goal as an optimistic alternative to a planet still tied to oil, coal and gas.

Inside the tight security of the opening plenary on Monday, delegates from almost 200 countries watched a stirring short film with scenes of fire, flood and storms that proclaimed: “It’s time to reconnect with the planet we have grown apart from.”