COP31 in Antalya: Leaders Say Wars Must Not Push Climate Action Aside
The 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is being held in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026. The leaders' segment, the Antalya Leaders' Summit, runs on 11-12 November.
Leaders and UN officials warned that wars and global tensions must not distract the world from climate action. Climate is competing for attention with the conflict involving Iran (which has disrupted oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz and raised fuel prices), the Russia-Ukraine war, high inflation and rising power demand from artificial intelligence.
COP31 has an unusual split presidency: Türkiye hosts and holds the presidency (COP31 President: Murat Kurum, Türkiye's environment minister), while Australia leads the negotiations (President of Negotiations: Chris Bowen). The hosts call it the "Implementation COP": a COP focused on turning old promises into action.
The UN Secretary-General said the world has entered "a new age of climate extremes" and asked leaders to "get serious" about cutting emissions, moving away from fossil fuels and providing finance. The UNFCCC Executive Secretary said progress is "nowhere near fast enough".
Türkiye proposed a voluntary "35 by 35" Global Electrification Pledge: raising electricity's share of final energy use from about 20% today to 35% by 2035.
Key fights are over money: developing countries want more climate finance and a push to triple adaptation finance, while developed countries are resisting new funding pledges. The United States has not sent government officials to the talks.
UNFCCC and the Conference of the Parties (COP)
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the main world treaty on climate change. It was agreed in 1992, and almost every country has joined it. The Conference of the Parties (COP) is its top decision-making body: a yearly meeting of all member countries where they negotiate how to tackle climate change. Big agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol (COP3) and the Paris Agreement (COP21) were adopted at COPs.
COP31 is the yearly UNFCCC meeting. Because decisions need every country to agree, a world divided by wars and energy shocks makes progress harder, which is why leaders urged countries to keep climate action separate from other conflicts.
New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on Climate Finance
The New Collective Quantified Goal, or NCQG, is the new global target for how much money must flow to developing countries every year to help them fight and cope with climate change. It was agreed at COP29 in Baku in 2024. It replaced the old goal of $100 billion a year, set in 2009, which rich countries were supposed to reach by 2020.
At COP31, developing countries wanted climate finance placed firmly on the agenda, while developed countries signalled little appetite for new pledges. The gap between the NCQG's $300 billion and the $1.3 trillion call remains a central fight in Antalya.
Adaptation Finance Under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement
Adaptation finance is money spent to help people, farms, cities and nature cope with the effects of climate change that are already happening, such as floods, droughts and heat waves. Examples are sea walls, drought-resistant crops, early-warning systems and heat action plans. It is different from mitigation finance, which pays to cut greenhouse gas emissions, for example by building solar plants.
African countries pushed at COP31 for tripling adaptation finance to get its own agenda item. It did not, and will be discussed under other items. Disasters such as the deadly glacier-collapse flood in Nepal this year show why vulnerable countries say adaptation money cannot wait.
- COP31: Antalya, Türkiye, 9-20 November 2026; Antalya Leaders' Summit on 11-12 November
- Presidency: Türkiye (COP31 President Murat Kurum); Australia leads negotiations (Chris Bowen)
- Pre-COP: held by Australia with Pacific island countries in Fiji
- Türkiye's "35 by 35" electrification pledge: electricity's share of final energy use from about 20% to 35% by 2035
- UNFCCC: adopted 1992, in force 21 March 1994, 198 Parties, secretariat in Bonn
- NCQG (COP29, Baku, 2024): at least $300 billion a year by 2035; call for $1.3 trillion a year from all sources
- Adaptation finance: doubling by 2025 (COP26, Glasgow); tripling by 2035 (COP30, Belém)
- Paris Agreement goal: limit warming to well below 2°C, pursuing 1.5°C, above pre-industrial levels