A France 24 program aired during COP31 examined how El Niño-related shifts in warmer Pacific water can intensify weather hazards and why early protection matters.
The Nov. 13 Access Asia episode aired as the U.N. climate conference COP31 was underway in Antalya, Turkey. France 24 described 2026 as likely to rank among the hottest years recorded and said the current El Niño is worsening extreme weather. The program connected that risk with warmer seawater moving east across the Pacific, a shift associated with hazards such as typhoons and flash floods.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Global Director of Climate Change, Cassie Flynn, told the program that the world faces a choice: invest in protection before impacts arrive or pay for their consequences afterward. “Either way, the bill is coming,” Flynn said. Her remarks focused on when the costs of climate impacts may fall: before damage, through preparation, or later, through response.
The program also turned to Indonesia, where wildfires were continuing. France 24 linked the fires to overlapping pressures from El Niño, climate change and deforestation.
Francine Elisaia, the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change movement's Narratives and Communications Lead, discussed human rights in climate action and her connection to the ocean. France 24 said student activists from Pacific island nations had taken their climate campaign to the U.N.’s highest court and won.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) outlook projects that the current El Niño could reach record strength in December; that remains a projection, as EconoTimes reported in its earlier coverage of the outlook.
