From promises to delivery
Today, governments gather in Antalya, Türkiye, for the 31st UN Climate Change Conference (COP31), which runs until 20 November. As all lights are on COP31, the defining pressure on this conference is to turn climate commitments into action. Belém gave us new frameworks: adaptation indicators, a Just Transition Mechanism and a pledge to triple adaptation finance. Antalya is where we find out whether they have substance.
COP31 also runs under an unusual shared arrangement. Türkiye holds the Presidency, hosts the conference and leads the Action Agenda, with Environment Minister Murat Kurum as COP President. Australia’s Chris Bowen serves as President of Negotiations and steers the formal talks. The World Leaders Summit falls on 11–12 November, mid-way through the first week, a deliberate move to add political momentum once negotiators have mapped the terrain.
Four issues to watch
Measuring and financing adaptation
Adaptation is a central test. At COP30, countries adopted 59 indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation and launched a two-year process to refine them. In Antalya, negotiators must agree how that refinement works, including methods that fit very different national contexts and capture outcomes for women and marginalised groups.
But indicators without money only measure the gap. The Belém pledge to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035 still lacks an agreed figure, and the latest UN Adaptation Gap Report finds that even a tripling would cover only about a third of developing countries’ needs. African negotiators have asked for adaptation finance to be added to the formal agenda, so expect an early procedural fight.
Food systems and the Rio synergies
Antalya also marks the end of the four-year work programme on agriculture and food security, with talks set to decide its outcomes and the future of food systems under the UNFCCC. Coming just after the biodiversity COP17 in Yerevan, Antalya is also a chance to give joint work on climate, nature and land a lasting, formal home across the three Rio Conventions. In practice, that means aligning NDCs, National Adaptation Plans, biodiversity strategies and land degradation neutrality targets, with shared reporting and joint implementation.
The fossil fuel transition after Santa Marta
The transition away from fossil fuels, agreed at COP28, has partly moved outside the UNFCCC. In April, 57 countries met in Santa Marta, Colombia, for the first international conference dedicated to it. The conference’s takeaways point to national and regional roadmaps linked to the UNFCCC, cross-border coordination, and tackling the fiscal dependencies that make a poorly managed phase-out a risk to public budgets.
Antalya is where those workstreams meet the second Global Stocktake, which starts at this COP and will shape the next round of NDCs. Governments are also being urged to address investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which can expose countries to costly claims when they restrict fossil fuels.
NDCs and the Paris fundamentals
Only around 150 parties have submitted new NDCs, and the Presidencies have urged the rest to file, along with their transparency reports. The rollout of the Belém Gender Action Plan for 2026–2034 is also on the agenda.
Why it matters for policy and business
For companies and investors, the most consequential outcomes in Antalya may be the least visible. Settled adaptation indicators and a credible finance figure would push physical risk and resilience further up the disclosure agenda, from ESRS E1 to IFRS S2. Fossil fuel roadmaps, even voluntary ones, signal the direction of national energy policy and the scale of stranded-asset risk.
For the Mediterranean, the stakes are close to home. The region is among the fastest-warming on the planet, and COP31 dedicates 17 November to oceans, seas, nature and land use. Blue economy finance, from blue bonds to coastal resilience, deserves a central place in that conversation.
The bottom line: COP31 will not be judged by new pledges but by whether the machinery built in Belém starts to work. We will be following the negotiations closely throughout the conference.
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Sources
- IISD – Inside COP 31
- IISD – What Happened in Santa Marta?
- IISD SDG Knowledge Hub – COP 31 Presidency outlines expectations for Pacific Pre-COP
- Climate Home News – COP31 Briefing: What to expect from the Antalya climate summit
- Carbon Brief – Who wants what at the COP31 climate change summit
- Carbon Copy – Six climate negotiations to watch in Antalya
- Sustainability Magazine – The Sustainability Leader’s Guide to COP31
- Türkiye Today – What to watch as COP31 climate talks begin in Antalya