COP31 Opens in Antalya: From Climate Promises to Delivery

Key takeaways: COP31 opens in Antalya on 9 November under a joint Turkish-Australian presidency. The talks focus on turning climate pledges into funded projects, with finance for developing countries the central dispute.

Flat conceptual illustration of a stylised globe with a rising gold sun, wind turbines and solar panels on green hills, and a white conference building — Illustration: WHAT TODAY?

The world’s largest climate meeting opens in Antalya, Türkiye, on Monday, with nearly 200 countries gathering for two weeks of talks that organisers say must turn years of climate promises into action. COP31, the 31st United Nations climate conference, runs from November 9 to 20 at the Antalya Expo Center, and it arrives with the gap between pledges and delivery wider than ever.

The summit runs under an arrangement the climate talks have not tried before. Türkiye holds the presidency, with Environment Minister Murat Kurum as COP President, while Australia’s Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen leads the formal negotiations. It is the first shared presidency in the talks’ roughly 30-year history. A World Leaders’ Summit is scheduled for November 11 and 12.

The joint presidency has set five priorities: electrification, bankable projects, finance, adaptation and ocean protection. The headline goal is the 35 by 35 pledge: electricity’s share of final energy use rising to 35 percent by 2035, from about 20 percent today. A new Climate Implementation Bridge is meant to turn national climate plans into investment-ready projects. The presidency stresses it is a platform, not a new climate fund.

The backdrop is sobering. A United Nations synthesis published on October 27 found that the 127 new national climate plans from 154 parties, covering about 71 percent of 2019 emissions, point to 2035 emissions only about 6 percent below 2019 levels. Holding warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius needs a cut of about 60 percent; on current plans it is estimated at 1.7 to 2.3 degrees. The presidency team warned that “the stakes are not abstract”, pointing to extreme heat, drought, wildfire, glacial retreat, rising seas and coastal erosion.

Finance is expected to be the hardest fight. Developing countries sought at least 1 to 1.3 trillion dollars a year, and India has called the agreed target of 300 billion dollars a year by 2035 grossly inadequate. India wants finance from developed countries to be predictable, largely public and concessional, and not to add to developing countries’ debt. A UN Environment Programme report released on November 4 put annual adaptation needs at about 305 billion dollars, against 85 to 120 billion dollars even if adaptation finance triples.

The talks also open without the United States as a party to the Paris Agreement, after its withdrawal took effect on January 27, 2026. Small island states, whose concerns were raised at pre-COP meetings in Fiji and Tuvalu, are pushing hardest for finance and adaptation support. Brazil’s COP30 presidency published a voluntary roadmap for moving away from fossil fuels on November 3, keeping that question alive.

Why it matters

For Pakistan, which ranks among the countries most exposed to climate extremes, the outcome in Antalya is not abstract either. Floods, heatwaves and glacial melt already strain its economy and infrastructure, and the finance decisions taken here will shape how much support countries like Pakistan can actually access. More broadly, COP31 is a test of whether the climate process can deliver money and projects, not just communiques. If pledges stay on paper, the credibility of the whole process weakens further.

What happens next

World leaders arrive on November 11 and 12, and negotiations continue until November 20. The outcomes to watch are whether the 35 by 35 electrification pledge gains broad backing, whether an Antalya Ocean Declaration is adopted, and whether negotiators agree on scaling up finance and easing access for developing countries. The final text will show whether governments can close the gap between what they have promised and what they are prepared to pay for.

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