The world needs to “rethink” and “redesign” its energy infrastructure in response to the climate crisis, requiring massive financial resources, Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said Friday, warning that public funding alone cannot meet the challenge.

Bayraktar’s remarks came on the sidelines of the ​Climate Finance Summit in Istanbul⁠, organized ahead of this year’s U.N. climate summit, COP31.

At the conference in the southern Antalya province scheduled for November, Türkiye will seek to deliver a historic action plan with concrete solutions to the climate crisis, with a particular focus on financing.

“Floods, droughts, wildfires, and storms around the world are disrupting electricity transmission and distribution. Due to global warming and climate change, we must rethink, redesign, and strengthen our electricity infrastructure,” Bayraktar said Friday.

The infrastructure built today must be designed to withstand the climate conditions of the next 10 years, he said. This, however, will require enormous financial resources, and public funding alone will not be enough, Bayraktar cautioned.

“We need to mobilize private capital, international financial institutions, development banks and long-term institutional investors,” he said. “We need financing mechanisms that reduce risk, lower the cost of capital, and make investments in clean energy and climate-resilient infrastructure commercially viable.”

Access to affordable, long-term climate finance is of vital importance, particularly for developing economies like Türkiye, Bayraktar said, warning that the global energy transition would not succeed if financing remained expensive or inaccessible in countries where energy demand and investment needs were growing fastest.

“An energy transition on an unprecedented scale lies ahead. In Türkiye alone, infrastructure requires at least $80 billion in investment through 2035,” said Bayraktar.

The transformation is not just about the environment, according to the minister. “It is also an agenda for energy security, economic development, and industrial competitiveness,” he said.

The long-established consensus ​among the world’s scientists is that climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and getting worse. Its main cause is greenhouse ​gas emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which trap heat in the atmosphere.

Türkiye’s energy transition

According to Bayraktar, Türkiye’s energy transition focuses on three goals simultaneously: securing energy supply, reducing dependence on imported energy and meeting the country’s climate commitments, including its 2053 net-zero emissions target.

None of these objectives can be considered independent from one another, he said. And under today’s conditions, achieving these simultaneously has become more challenging than ever.

Drawing attention to the challenges experienced worldwide in recent years, Bayraktar pointed to serious pressures in the global oil and natural gas markets.

“Energy prices have risen significantly. Natural gas prices in Europe have once again reached their highest levels in recent years,” he said.

This, Bayraktar said, reminds the world once again of a fundamental truth: “Energy security has not fallen off the agenda alongside the energy transition. On the contrary, energy security and the energy transition must move forward hand in hand.”

For Türkiye, the key to this is “electrification,” Bayraktar said.

Renewables, nuclear power

Renewable energy will remain at the center of Türkiye’s energy transition, the minister said, pointing to the country’s potential in solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal resources.

“We are rapidly increasing our installed renewable capacity, while also building an electrical infrastructure capable of integrating much higher volumes of variable renewable generation into the grid,” he noted.

Energy efficiency should also be treated as a strategic energy resource, Bayraktar said.

Türkiye’s 2024-2030 National Energy Efficiency Action Plan envisages more than $20 billion in investment across industry, buildings, transport, agriculture and energy.

Türkiye also plans to prepare a third national energy efficiency action plan with more ambitious targets for the following decade, he added.

Nuclear power, meanwhile, will also be one of the indispensable components of Türkiye’s carbon-free electricity generation portfolio, Bayraktar said.

“In an increasingly electrified economy, we view nuclear energy and renewable energy not as competitors, but as two complementary core components of a safe and clean energy system,” he added.

Grid investment becomes critical

Bayraktar said the transition in transport, along with the growing importance of battery storage, would further increase pressure on electricity infrastructure.

“Focusing only on generation investments is not enough,” he said. Focusing solely on generation investments is not enough. We need very large-scale investments in both transmission and distribution grids. Our electricity grids need to become larger, more powerful, smarter, and more flexible,” he noted.

Bayraktar also highlighted the strategic importance of critical minerals needed for transmission lines and batteries.

“Just as there was a ‘gold rush’ in the 1800s, there is a global race for critical minerals today. Countries that cannot access these minerals will fall behind in many areas, from renewable energy to data centers, and from artificial intelligence to the industries of the future,” he said.

“In short, the extraction of these minerals and the financing of mining projects are of strategic importance,” he noted.

Türkiye has signed a cooperation agreement with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) that will ​support environmental investments, urban infrastructure and climate change efforts, a top official said Friday.

The first phase of the agreement will focus on environmental projects in the ​Marmara region through an investment ​package worth ⁠around 400 million euros ($465 million), Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister Murat ⁠Kurum said.

“We aim to provide significant support for the cleaning of the Marmara Sea and our fight against sea snot through an investment package worth approximately 400 million euros, primarily for advanced biological wastewater treatment facilities,” Kurum noted.

He did not give details of any further phases of the cooperation agreement, nor how much the total investment ⁠could amount ⁠to.

Türkiye in the past faced a plague of “sea snot,” a thick, slimy layer of organic matter known as marine mucilage, in the Sea of Marmara, posing a threat to marine life and the fishing industry. The inner Sea of Marmara, which connects the Black Sea through ⁠the Bosporus to the Aegean Sea through the Dardanelles, lies in the middle of the most industrialized region of ​Türkiye.

Kurum said increasing wastewater treatment capacity, expanding advanced biological ​treatment facilities and strengthening environmental infrastructure were among the main efforts of Türkiye’s attempts ⁠to ‌address pollution ‌in the sea.

Kurum and AIIB ⁠Vice President Ajay Bhushan ‌Pandey signed the cooperation agreement on the sidelines of the ​Climate Finance Summit in Istanbul, organized ahead of the COP31 ⁠U.N. climate conference in November.

Türkiye is one of ⁠the AIIB’s ​largest investment destinations, Pandey noted.

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U.S. job growth accelerated sharply in August while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, suggesting an improvement in the labor market after recent struggles and ⁠keeping an interest rate hike from the Federal ⁠Reserve (Fed) this month on the table.

The jobs report, issued by the Labor Department Friday, could be good news for President Donald Trump two months before midterm elections in which the health of the economy is weighing on voters’ minds.

Nonfarm payrolls surged by a surprising 162,000 jobs last month, the data showed. Hiring far exceeded the 65,000 forecasters had expected, according to a poll by FactSet. Labor Department revisions also looked good, adding 55,000 to June and July payrolls. Employers created 21,000 jobs in July; the Labor Department had originally reported that they’d cut 23,000.

Restaurants and bars added 59,000 jobs last month, construction companies 22,000 and manufacturers 16,000. Factory jobs are up by 58,000 since hitting a recent low in December, the Labor Department noted.

So far this year, employers – companies, government agencies and nonprofits – have added an average of more than 80,000 jobs a month. That is up from a dismal 9,700 last year.

But hiring remains well below the 166,000 monthly jobs that were the norm in 2023 and 2024, let alone the 491,000 a month recorded during the 2021-2022 hiring boom that followed pandemic lockdowns.

And the U.S. labor force – the number of people working or looking for work – jumped by 683,000 last month after falling in June and July.

Yet many households are struggling with the high cost of living, and wage gains aren’t helping much. Average hourly wages rose 3.1% last month from a year earlier, the weakest year-over-year increase since May 2021.

Friday’s report may increase the likelihood that the Fed will raise its key short-term interest rate when it next meets Sept. 15-16. Solid hiring sends a signal that current borrowing costs aren’t necessarily high enough to restrain the economy and cool inflation.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said last week that inflation, at 3.7% according to the Fed’s preferred measure, remains too far above the central bank’s 2% target, and added that without further progress, they would have “work to do.”

With hiring seemingly healthy, the Fed’s focus will shift to a critical inflation report that is being released next week. On Thursday, Fed governor Christopher Waller said he is leaning toward keeping the Fed’s rate unchanged, but would support a hike if inflation comes in high.

Contributing to inflation is the struggle that U.S. employers have had dealing with a shortage of workers – the result of Trump’s immigration crackdown and the retirement of baby boomers. Some are responding by using technology for tasks that human beings used to do.

Employers have been reluctant to let go of the staff they have, so most Americans enjoy unusual job security and unemployment is low.

“It’s a very strange labor market,” David Kelly, chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, wrote in a commentary Monday.

The No. 1 puzzler: Hiring is weak, but layoffs are rare.

Employers haven’t been eager to take on new workers. The Labor Department reported Tuesday that gross hiring – before subtracting people who lost or left their jobs – fell 5% to fewer than 5.1 million new jobs.

The United States doesn’t need as many jobs as it did until recently to keep the national unemployment rate from rising. Trump’s immigration crackdown and baby boomer retirements mean fewer people are available for work. More than 1.3 million people have dropped out of the U.S. labor force over the past year.

As a result, the “break-even” rate of monthly hiring, 155,000 in 2023-2024, has dropped, perhaps to nearly zero, according to a Federal Reserve study.

Instead of looking to hire from a diminished pool of available workers, “businesses are increasingly focused on boosting efficiency through technology and AI and increasingly seek to do more with their existing workforce,” EY-Parthenon economists Gregory Daco and Lydia Boussour wrote in a commentary this week.

Even if they aren’t hiring aggressively, companies are reluctant to let go of the staff they have. They retain memories of the unexpected labor shortages that followed the end of COVID-19 lockdowns.

So unemployment remains low. For the past year, the number of people applying each week for unemployment benefits – a proxy for layoffs – has stayed in a historically low range of around 200,000 to 230,000.

The result is what economists call a “no-hire, no-fire″ labor market in which those who have work enjoy job security, but times are tough for young workers trying to land entry-level jobs or unemployed people seeking to get back to work.

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President Donald Trump threatened Friday to stop trading with countries with which the U.S. has a deficit unless the Federal Reserve (Fed) lowers interest rates, citing a strong August jobs report as justification.

“High interest ​rates put the U.S.A. at a ​very unfair disadvantage, and I won’t allow that to happen!” said Trump, who has repeatedly demanded ​that the Fed cut rates.

​The Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday ‌reported stronger-than-expected job creation in August, prompting traders to boost bets on a hike later this month.

“Lower the interest rates because the U.S.A. is a much stronger credit than it was just a short time ago!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

“We ​should ​have the ⁠LOWEST RATE of any country in the World … ​LOWER THE RATE OR ​I’LL ⁠STOP TRADING WITH COUNTRIES WITH WHICH WE HAVE A DEFICIT,” ⁠he said.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said last week that inflation, at 3.7% according to the Fed’s preferred measure, remains too far above the central bank’s 2% target, and added that without further progress, they would have “work to do.”

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World food prices rose in August to their highest ⁠since late 2022, as adverse weather ⁠and war disruption in the Black Sea heightened concern over the supply of staples, the United Nations’ food agency said Friday.

Extreme heat and drought ​in Europe, the threat of a severe El Nino weather ​pattern ⁠and trade upheaval caused by the Ukraine and Iran wars have unsettled agricultural markets, pushing grain prices to three-year highs and sugar to a one-year peak.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in a basket of internationally traded food commodities, averaged 133.3 points in August, up from July’s revised reading of 130.8.

That was the highest score since November 2022, though nearly 17% below a record peak from March 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“August’s increase in global food prices is a warning that the risk premium is returning to food markets: climate shocks, geopolitical tensions ⁠and ⁠disrupted trade logistics are converging to tighten supply expectations,” FAO Chief Economist Maximo Torero said in a statement.

The FAO’s price benchmarks for cereals, vegetable oils, sugar, meat and dairy all rose in August.

The extreme weather in Europe affected prospects for the maize (corn) and sugar beet harvests as well as livestock output, while the anticipated El Nino phenomenon fuelled concerns for palm oil and sugar output in Asia, it said.

Escalating attacks in the Black Sea have curtailed grain shipments from Russia and Ukraine ⁠in their 4-1/2-year-old war, while the U.S.-Iran conflict was straining flows of fertiliser for crops.

Among food categories, FAO’s cereals price index rose 2.2% month-over-month to its highest since May 2024, and the vegetable oil index ​edged up 0.6% to its highest since June 2022.

The agency’s sugar benchmark jumped 11.9% ​to its highest since June 2025, with lower production in Brazil’s crucial center-south region adding to weather concerns in Europe and Asia.

In a separate report, the ⁠agency cut ‌its ‌2026 global cereal production forecast by 3.4 million metric tons from ⁠a previous estimate in July to 2.980 billion ‌tons, now 2.0% below 2025 in the largest annual decline since 2018.

Projected output would still be the ​second-largest on record, however.

Forecast world cereal ⁠stocks at the close of 2026/2027 were revised down 1.1% to ⁠947.2 million tons, now only marginally above the previous season.

A reduced estimate of coarse ⁠grain stocks outweighed ​an upward revision for wheat that reflected an anticipated build-up in Russian and Ukrainian stocks due to shipping disruption, the FAO said.

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Volkswagen shares hit an 11-week high Friday after the supervisory board of ⁠Europe’s largest automaker struck an ⁠ambitious turnaround agreement that put the focus on sweeping job cuts and averted a clash between major stakeholders.

The deal announced late Thursday on the biggest restructuring in the group’s 89-year history includes a ​further 50,000 job cuts, bringing the total agreed to 100,000, and leaves ​open ⁠the future of four of its German plants.

Volkswagen, like most of its European peers, is under pressure from painful tariffs in the United States, falling sales in former cash cow China and aggressive Asian rivals entering the stagnant European market.

All these factors have gnawed at the group’s operating margin, which stood at 3.8% in the first half, down from 7.9% in 2022, its peak over the past decade.

Shareholders and analysts expressed relief that Volkswagen – with a workforce of more than 650,000, a complex structure and powerful stakeholder groups – is still able to make far-reaching decisions in times of crisis.

Volkswagen shares were up 5.9% at 1046 GMT, the second-biggest gainer on the pan-European STOXX 600 index, having earlier ⁠hit ⁠their highest since June 18.

Ingo Speich of Volkswagen shareholder Deka Investment called the agreement a breakthrough: “Does this mean Volkswagen is out of the woods? Definitely not. Now comes the hard part: execution.”

Moritz Kronenberger at Union Investment, while welcoming the deal, also said the pressure was now on management to deliver: “The ball is now entirely in the executive board’s court. There are no more excuses.”

Management, outnumbered by unions and Lower Saxony on the supervisory board, had considered calling a shareholder meeting to push through its demands, which would have been an unprecedented stakeholder conflict at the carmaker.

While the deal ⁠gave no details on where and by when the cuts would happen, Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume previously said that half of the savings would have to come from Germany, suggesting around 25,000 job cuts at its local operations.

Details of the ​job cut program will have to be hammered out between management and unions, which secured a job ​guarantee for most of Volkswagen’s German operations until 2030 as part of a previous turnaround package in 2024.

“We are pleased this agreement has been achieved,” Citi analysts wrote. “Nevertheless, this agreement ⁠does not automatically change ‌the EU ‌competitive environment, continued China market-share losses, and raw material cost pressures.”

Volkswagen ⁠will seek alternatives for its German plants in Emden, Hanover, Zwickau ‌and Neckarsulm following production phase-outs in the next decade, which could cover a range of options, including repurposing them under new ​ownership, people familiar with the matter have ⁠said.

Olaf Lies, state premier of Lower Saxony – which holds 20% of Volkswagen’s ⁠voting rights – said closing the plants was not a done deal and that management had been asked ⁠to look for alternative solutions.

“If ​we have to cut capacity, the automatic conclusion cannot be that we cut it in Germany,” he told reporters, still acknowledging that Europe’s auto sector was under enormous pressure.

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