Washington's Pick Pitches Oil as Climate Plan at COP31

Delcy Rodríguez stood before the COP31 plenary in Antalya, southern Turkey, on Thursday, 12 November 2026, and defended her country's right to exploit its oil "responsibly." She holds the title of Acting President. She got it after the United States captured Nicolás Maduro in January.

That's the backdrop. A government installed in the wake of a foreign abduction went to a climate summit and asked the world for room to pump more crude. Her pitch came wrapped in a slogan: "Venezuela vive, un país, una naturaleza, un futuro. Porque proteger la naturaleza es proteger la vida. O actuamos todos juntos o la vida se apaga."

A Plan With No Details

Rodríguez announced a plan called "Venezuela vive." Its stated goal is to "articular los planes, programas y esfuerzos que permitan proteger nuestros bosques, aguas y océanos, la biodiversidad y la acción climática." That's coordination language, and nothing more. She gave no details of the plan. No budget, no timeline, no mechanism, no word on who would be accountable or who would pay.

The people living with the consequences got a slogan. She herself conceded that Venezuela is "increasingly feeling climate change." "Venezuela está perdiendo sus glaciares y ya está entre nosotros el llamado Súper Niño, que podría ser el fenómeno climático más fuerte en más de 70 años," she said. Then came the line that carries the whole hierarchy in a sentence: "Lo que decidamos en esta década lo pagarán o lo agradecerán nuestros hijos." The ones who decide are at the podium. The ones who pay are the children.

Carbon Neutral, Oil-Fueled

Venezuela holds the world's largest oil reserves. Rodríguez called those reserves the "gran motor para el desarrollo nacional." She also claimed her country contributes just 0.39% of greenhouse gas emissions, and that its ecosystems absorb 1.8 tons of carbon for every ton it emits. "Somos un país carbono neutro donde nuestra capacidad natural de absorción supera ampliamente a nuestras emisiones," she said.

Then she turned the accounting into a license. "Creemos que no existe contradicción inevitable entre el desarrollo energético y la protección ambiental, porque una transición justa no apaga economías, las transforma," she told delegates. "Se puede crecer protegiendo y cuidando al mismo tiempo el ambiente."

She offered what she called a global "trilema energético": supply security, affordable prices and environmental sustainability, all at once. Decarbonization, she said, must not "profundizar la pobreza energética ni castigar a los más vulnerables." It "debe ser justa, viable y asequible," and requires "cooperación internacional, recursos y respeto por la soberanía y las circunstancias nacionales."

The Money Gap

One number in her speech cuts deeper than the slogans. "Los países en desarrollo necesitan 310.000 millones de dólares al año para adaptarse, pero reciben actualmente menos de 26.000 millones. Esa brecha también es una emergencia," Rodríguez said. She called on developed countries to meet their climate-finance and technology-transfer commitments, and acknowledged adaptation, mitigation and restitutive measures for loss and damage.

Do the subtraction. Roughly $284 billion a year, the distance between what's needed and what arrives. Rich states make the commitments and the summits keep producing speeches, and the gap stays open. The poor wait on pledges while the glaciers go.

So the summit hands us two requests from the same stage: wealthy governments, pay what you promised, and let us keep drilling in the meantime. Neither request touches who controls the oil, who profits from it, or who answers for it. A plenary, a plan without details, and a sovereign's right to extract. The people downstream of all of it weren't in the room.