Climate Policy 5 min read

Belém Mission to 1.5 explained: what it must deliver before COP31

Belém Mission to 1.5 explained: how its COP31 report differs from the Global Implementation Accelerator and what it needs to deliver.

Kieran Simpson 13 Jul 2026 Updated 13 Jul 2026

The Belém Mission to 1.5 will turn submissions and consultations into a report for COP31. It is not a new temperature target, funding pot or delivery body. Its value will depend on whether the report identifies decisions and institutions that can move national climate plans into practice.

The first phase of the Belém Mission to 1.5 closed on 12 July 2026, when its extended call for public inputs ended. Governments, investors, companies, researchers and civil-society groups were asked where climate plans are getting stuck and which forms of cooperation could remove those barriers.

Those answers will now feed a report due before COP31 in Antalya in November. The report is meant to identify high-impact opportunities, barriers and actionable solutions for implementing nationally determined contributions and national adaptation plans.

That gives the Mission a specific job. It does not negotiate a fresh global target. It has to make the existing plans easier to deliver.

A report, not a new 1.5°C target

The 1.5°C limit comes from the Paris Agreement, which commits countries to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The Belém Mission does not alter that goal, allocate a new emissions budget or require countries to submit another national target.

It was created in the context of the Global Mutirão decision adopted at COP30 in Belém. That decision shifted attention towards implementing nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and national adaptation plans (NAPs), alongside stronger international cooperation and investment.

The Mission is being steered by the COP29, COP30 and COP31 presidencies. Azerbaijan, Brazil, Türkiye and Australia are therefore involved in carrying the process through 2026. Their stated output is a report for decision-makers across government, business, technology and investment before COP31 begins on 9 November.

The report itself will not compel a government, lender or company to act. It can still influence what enters the Antalya agenda by narrowing a broad implementation problem into a smaller set of priorities, barriers and possible interventions.

The consultation asked where climate plans are getting stuck

The call for inputs centred on two questions. The first asked which action areas and solutions could do most to support stronger national plans and faster implementation. The second asked what international cooperation would make those plans easier to carry out.

Respondents could address policy, technology, finance, institutional capacity and investment at global, national, regional or local level. The public submission list included inputs from Costa Rica, Indonesia, Mauritius, Norway and the Philippines, alongside contributions from investor groups, companies, universities, development organisations and civil society.

That range creates both the opportunity and the difficulty. A grid operator, a small island government and an institutional investor may all agree that finance is a barrier while describing very different problems. One may need faster planning and transmission investment, another affordable adaptation funding, and the third a stronger list of investable projects with clearer risk allocation.

A useful synthesis therefore needs more than a catalogue of familiar obstacles. It should show which barrier applies to which actor, where authority sits and what decision could change the outcome.

How the Mission differs from the Global Implementation Accelerator

The Belém Mission to 1.5 and the Global Implementation Accelerator were both launched under the Global Mutirão decision, but they are not two names for the same initiative.

The Mission is an evidence and consultation process. It examines solutions and is expected to culminate in a report before COP31. Its immediate product is analysis intended to shape political and practical priorities.

The Global Implementation Accelerator is described by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as a cooperative, facilitative and voluntary initiative under the joint guidance of the COP30 and COP31 presidencies. Its mandate is to support implementation of national climate and adaptation plans across public and private actors.

In plain terms, the Mission is meant to identify where action could have the greatest effect and what is blocking it. The Accelerator is meant to help convene and support implementation. The two should connect, but neither automatically supplies finance, changes domestic law or guarantees that a project will be built.

Finance needs to be attached to a delivery problem

Climate finance will run through much of the Mission's work because many national plans contain measures that depend on outside support. Yet a larger finance headline does not reveal why money is failing to reach a particular grid, resilience project or public programme.

The new climate finance goal contains a developed-country-led target of at least $300 billion a year by 2035 within a wider effort to scale finance from all sources to at least $1.3 trillion annually. The Belém Mission has a different task: identify the institutional, policy and investment barriers between those global figures and implementation on the ground.

Those barriers may include a shortage of concessional finance, weak project preparation, currency risk, limited public-sector capacity, slow permitting, unavailable grid connections or a lack of reliable local data. They do not all have the same remedy. A bankable generation project and community-level adaptation may both need money, but they require different capital, institutions and measures of success.

The report will be more useful if it separates those problems instead of treating mobilisation as one route from a global pledge to a national plan.

The report must connect priorities with institutions

The Mission's broad remit makes prioritisation unavoidable. A report that lists every sector, technology and barrier may be comprehensive without helping anyone decide what to do first.

Four details would make its recommendations easier to judge:

the action area or barrier being addressed;
the government, institution or market actor with authority to change it;
the finance, policy, technology or capacity needed;
the evidence that would show whether implementation improved.

That level of specificity would also help distinguish international cooperation from domestic responsibility. Some barriers require multilateral development banks, climate funds or cross-border technology cooperation. Others depend on national planning rules, public budgets, regulators or procurement decisions.

The Mission cannot remove every barrier itself. It can make the division of responsibility harder to avoid.

What to look for before COP31

The next important document is the Mission's report before COP31. Its publication date has not yet been specified more precisely than ahead of the Antalya conference.

When it appears, the main questions will be whether it:

selects a manageable set of high-impact priorities rather than restating the whole climate agenda;
distinguishes mitigation, adaptation and finance barriers clearly;
names the actors capable of carrying out each recommendation;
connects recommendations to the Global Implementation Accelerator and existing institutions;
explains how progress will be followed after COP31.

The report will also arrive beside a wider gap in national ambition. The latest NDC 3.0 assessment shows that current 2035 plans still fall well short of the emissions cuts associated with the Paris temperature goals. Better implementation cannot substitute for stronger targets, but targets that cannot be financed or delivered do not close the gap either.

If the report only collects obstacles already familiar to governments and investors, the Mission will end where it started. If it connects a small number of barriers to decisions, institutions and finance routes, COP31 will have a clearer route from climate plans to implementation.

Useful source links

Data checked

Checked 13 July 2026 against the UNFCCC Belém Mission to 1.5 page and public submission list, the Global Implementation Accelerator page, the May 2026 call for inputs and the Global Mutirão decision. Review when the Mission publishes its pre-COP31 report, announces further consultations or changes its implementation links.