World leaders urge stronger, faster action at UN climate talks over inadequate response

ANTALYA, Turkey — World leaders called for urgent and decisive action on global warming Wednesday as formal talks began at the United Nations climate conference in Turkey, saying the crisis is disproportionately harming some of the world’s most vulnerable countries. “You might as well bomb us. That might have been easier than watching climate change tear apart our homes piece by piece,” said Surangel Whipps Jr., president of the island nation of Palau. “We are at war with a crisis we did not create. A war no peace treaty can end, only urgent action can.” The annual summit follows a year of deadly floods, heat waves and other disasters. Leaders said geopolitical conflicts had diverted attention from climate change. Leaders of the world’s three biggest polluting nations — China, the United States and India, which together account for more than half of global carbon dioxide emissions — skipped the summit at COP31. Their absence left a handful of national leaders and U.N. officials to press for action as a new report warned of a widening gap between countries’ climate ple