COP31 Antalya 2026: dates, presidency and what is at stake

COP31 takes place in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026. Here is what the Türkiye-Australia arrangement, US Paris withdrawal, fossil fuel roadmap, climate finance and Article 6 mean.

Negotiating positions and national submissions are live and changing. This article reflects the state of play as of June 2026. It will be updated in September/October 2026 as NDC submissions are synthesised and the pre-summit process develops. Check unfccc.int/cop31 for the latest official updates.

For aviation, the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) is the relevant compliance framework. For related reading, see our guides to the Paris Agreement and US withdrawal, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, CORSIA explained, SBTi explained, how carbon credits work and Norway's sovereign wealth fund.

The Paris Agreement was adopted ten years ago. The decade since has been the hottest on record. UNEP's 2025 Emissions Gap Report puts current policies on a 2.8 degrees Celsius pathway. Full implementation of current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) would lower the projection to roughly 2.3-2.5 degrees Celsius, but that is still far from the cuts needed for the Paris temperature goals.

Into that context comes COP31, the thirty-first Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), convening in Antalya, Türkiye, this November. It is the first full UN climate conference cycle after the United States Paris Agreement withdrawal took effect. The US administration has also announced steps to withdraw from the UNFCCC itself, which would reshape US formal participation if carried through on the stated timeline. And it inherits a substantial pile of unresolved business from COP30 in Belém: fossil fuel language that was stripped from the final text, a climate finance target without a delivery mechanism, and deforestation commitments that fell short.

COP31 is not merely the next conference. It is the first serious test of whether the Paris Agreement architecture can do more than continue without its largest historical emitter. The question is not survival. COP30 demonstrated that the framework survives. The question at COP31 is whether it can accelerate.

Quick answer

COP31 in the recent COP timeline

COP31 is easier to understand as the next test in a chain of unfinished decisions rather than as a standalone event. The conference inherits language from COP28, finance architecture from COP29 and unresolved political fights from COP30.

What COP31 actually is

The basics

COP31 convenes at the Antalya EXPO Center, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026. It is simultaneously three separate formal sessions: the 31st session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP31), the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP21), and the eighth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA8).

The Leaders Summit will be held in Antalya, at the conference venue. This is confirmed in the official 20 May 2026 joint letter from the COP31 President-Designate and the President of Negotiations: "The Leaders' Summit to be held in Antalya will provide an important opportunity to generate political momentum, advance practical initiatives, and reaffirm our shared determination to translate commitments into implementation."

COP31 describes its own mandate as an "Implementation Conference" and a "Conference of the Future", aiming to translate commitments into trackable progress rather than negotiate further frameworks.

The Türkiye-Australia arrangement

The most distinctive structural fact about COP31, and the one most preview coverage has not properly explained, is that it has two distinct leadership roles.

Türkiye is the formal COP31 President. Murat Kurum, Türkiye's Minister for Environment, Urban Planning and Climate Change, serves as COP31 President-Designate. Türkiye sets the Action Agenda themes, hosts the conference physically, and holds the formal title of conference presidency.

Australia holds the separate role of President of Negotiations. Australia's Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, serves in this role and holds what the official Türkiye-Australia Partnership Modalities describe as "exclusive authority in relation to the negotiations", covering the agenda, draft texts and appointment of co-facilitators. Australia is not a co-president in the same legal sense as Türkiye, but its authority over the negotiating process is comprehensive and formally defined.

This arrangement emerged to resolve a diplomatic impasse. Both Türkiye and Australia had made bids to host COP31. Without the compromise, the conference would have defaulted to Bonn, Germany, risking a year without focused political negotiation leadership from a region outside the traditional northern European hosting pattern. The arrangement is described in the official Türkiye-Australia Partnership Modalities, published by UNFCCC.

The practical implication: Türkiye's presidency shapes the tone, themes and political framing of COP31. Australia drives the negotiating outcomes. The two roles pull in somewhat different directions. Türkiye's Action Agenda emphasises electrification and economic opportunity; Australia's negotiating mandate emphasises implementation of existing commitments and keeping 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach.

The Pacific dimension

A pre-summit meeting will be held in the Republic of Fiji, and a special leaders gathering in Tuvalu, on 5 to 8 October 2026. This is confirmed in the joint presidential letter of 20 May 2026. Australia has appointed three Pacific Climate Envoys for COP31: Kristina Eonemto Stege from the Marshall Islands as Regional Envoy for Oceania, Ruel Yamuna from Papua New Guinea as Envoy for Access to Climate Finance, and Inia Seruiratu from Fiji as Envoy for the Ocean.

The Pacific pre-summit process reflects Australia's role as the Pacific region's primary developed-country partner and ensures that Small Island Developing States' (SIDS) existential climate concerns, including sea-level rise, loss and damage, and adaptation finance, are front of mind before the main conference. Leaders will witness the physical impacts of climate change on Pacific communities directly before travelling to Antalya.

The Action Agenda

COP31's ten priority themes under the Action Agenda are: Zero Waste, Oceans and Seas, Food Security, Climate-Resilient Cities, Powering Climate Action, Youth and Education, Green Industrialization, Clean Energy Transition, Rio Synergy, and Dynamic and Resilient Health Systems.

Electrification sits at the centre of the COP31 Presidency's stated ambition. At the Copenhagen Climate Ministerial in May 2026, Kurum called for electricity's current 20% share of final energy consumption to rise "as quickly as possible", framing COP31 as a conference about economic transformation and energy opportunity rather than burden-sharing.

Why the Türkiye-Australia arrangement matters

The split presidency is more than an administrative detail. It shapes the political dynamic of the conference in ways that are worth understanding before the event.

Türkiye is a country with a complex climate history. It was one of the last major economies to ratify the Paris Agreement, doing so in 2021 and as a developing country, a status that affects its climate finance obligations. It is a significant fossil fuel transit country: natural gas pipelines from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran all cross Turkish territory. It is also investing substantially in renewable energy, with significant solar and wind capacity expansion underway. Hosting COP31 is a statement of climate diplomatic ambition that sits alongside, not instead of, those fossil fuel transit interests.

Australia, by contrast, signed the Belém Declaration ahead of taking on the negotiations role, a signal of alignment with the ambition of the COP30 outcomes. It has committed to inclusive, party-driven negotiations focused on acceleration and implementation. But Australia itself remains a major coal and LNG exporter, and its domestic politics around fossil fuels have not been without complexity.

The tension between Türkiye's fossil fuel transit role and Australia's negotiating mandate to close the emissions gap is one of the interesting political dynamics heading into Antalya. Both countries have commercial interests in fossil fuels. Both are also making the case for climate leadership. That tension will be visible in how the presidency handles the fossil fuel roadmap that Brazil has promised to bring to COP31.

The Mediterranean location is also not a neutral backdrop. The region faces some of the most acute climate impacts in Europe and the Near East, including forest fires, extreme heat, sea-level rise and water stress. COP31 being held in a city experiencing these pressures directly is a political statement of its own.

What COP30 left unresolved

COP30 took place in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025. It produced genuine outcomes and genuine failures. COP31 inherits both.

What COP30 achieved

The Belém Political Package committed to tripling adaptation finance for developing countries. It established a target of mobilising $1.3 trillion annually for climate action by 2035 through the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap agreed at COP29 and advanced at COP30. The Global Implementation Accelerator was established. And for the first time in formal climate conference decision language, parties acknowledged the likelihood of overshooting 1.5 degrees Celsius, a significant shift in the official framing of the climate situation.

What COP30 failed to achieve

Fossil fuels: Despite more than 80 countries backing a formal roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels, the final Belém outcome text contained no explicit fossil fuel language. The only reference was a backward-looking citation of the UAE Consensus from COP28 on "transitioning away." The word "fossil fuels" did not appear in the final text. Brazil's COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago publicly committed to presenting both a fossil fuel transition roadmap and a deforestation roadmap at COP31 as inputs to negotiations. These are promised inputs, not guaranteed decisions.

Deforestation: No binding agreement on a deforestation roadmap, despite the conference being held in the Amazon.

Climate finance: The $300 billion per year public finance component of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), the public sub-target within the $1.3 trillion overall goal, was described as "disappointing and insufficient" by most developing nations. The full $1.3 trillion annual target depends on contested private finance mobilisation frameworks that have no agreed delivery mechanism. The gap between what was committed and what is needed remains large.

The 2.8 degree trajectory: UNEP's 2025 Emissions Gap Report found that current policies point to 2.8 degrees Celsius of warming, while full NDC implementation would put the world on a 2.3-2.5 degrees Celsius pathway. Annual emissions would need to fall 35% by 2035 for a 2 degrees Celsius pathway and 55% for a 1.5 degrees Celsius pathway, compared with 2019 levels. That gap did not close at COP30.

The US withdrawal context

The US Paris Agreement withdrawal took effect on 27 January 2026. At COP30 in November 2025, the White House said the United States would not send high-level representatives to the talks. Subnational US officials and climate actors still attended around the summit, but practical federal participation was sharply reduced.

The US administration has also announced steps to withdraw from the UNFCCC itself. Because the UNFCCC is a Senate-ratified treaty, legal commentary has questioned whether unilateral executive withdrawal is fully settled under US domestic law. On the administration's stated timeline, the withdrawal would take effect in January 2027, after COP31 but before COP32 in Addis Ababa in 2027. COP31 is therefore the last conference before that stated deadline, though practical US federal participation has already been sharply reduced.

For a full account of the US withdrawal from Paris, the UNFCCC and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), see our guide to the Paris Agreement and US withdrawal.

The power vacuum

The US absence does not simply leave a gap. It redistributes influence.

China is increasingly positioned as the leading voice on clean energy transition among major economies and is influential in shaping developing-country bloc positions within the G77. Its domestic emissions trajectory complicates its credibility as a climate leader: it remains the world's largest annual emitter and has continued to approve new coal capacity domestically. Its clean technology dominance in solar, batteries and EVs gives it structural influence over the energy transition regardless of its diplomatic positioning.

The EU remains the most ambitious major bloc on emissions targets and continues to lead on climate finance from developed countries. The EU contributed approximately €31.7 billion in climate finance in 2024, the single largest national or regional contribution to the global climate finance pool. Internal EU pressures from energy costs, defence spending and political complexity in several member states have not shifted its institutional commitment to its climate frameworks.

The G77 and China, a group of 134 developing countries, are simultaneously the most exposed to climate impacts and the most dependent on the climate finance that the US absence makes harder to deliver at scale. The trust deficit between developed and developing countries over finance commitments is the most significant political fault line at COP31.

What the absence means for finance

The US was historically a significant contributor to multilateral climate finance mechanisms. Its absence from the NCQG delivery conversation makes the $1.3 trillion annual target harder to underpin with credible funding. The burden falls more heavily on the EU, Japan, Canada and other developed economy contributors. Whether those countries increase their own contributions to compensate, or allow the target to remain aspirational, is a central question for COP31.

The key negotiating tracks

The table below summarises what each major track must deliver at COP31, and why it matters.

NDC 3.0: the emissions gap test

Countries were requested to submit new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), their third generation of national climate plans, ahead of the 2025 climate cycle. The UNFCCC Secretariat synthesises these submissions into reports that provide the central input to the political debate at Antalya. The synthesis will quantify how much updated commitments have improved, or failed to improve, the 2.8 degree trajectory. The NDC synthesis is the number that matters most at COP31. Every other track operates in its shadow.

What to watch before November

Three pre-summit signals will matter before delegates arrive in Antalya. First, whether the NDC synthesis shows meaningful movement away from the 2.8 degrees Celsius current-policy pathway. Second, whether the Fiji and Tuvalu pre-summit process produces clear asks from vulnerable states on adaptation, loss and damage, and finance access. Third, whether Brazil's fossil fuel and deforestation roadmaps arrive as serious negotiating inputs or remain diplomatic placeholders.

Climate finance: operationalising the NCQG

The NCQG architecture, $300 billion per year in public finance and $1.3 trillion per year overall by 2035, was set at COP29 and further developed at COP30. COP31 must advance the operational detail: how the money flows, to whom, through which mechanisms, and with what accountability. The two-year work programme on Article 9 implementation agreed at COP30 reports to COP31. This is where abstract finance commitments become concrete delivery frameworks, or fail to.

Fossil fuels: Brazil's roadmap arrives

Brazil's promised fossil fuel transition roadmap is the most politically charged input to COP31. The question is whether it can produce the formal decision text that COP30 failed to adopt. The same 80-plus countries that backed a roadmap at Belém remain willing to support one. Whether Türkiye, as host, can manage the objections from major fossil-fuel-producing states that blocked the text in Belém is the central diplomatic challenge.

Article 6: carbon markets and CORSIA

For carbon markets, COP31 matters because Article 6 accounting determines whether internationally transferred mitigation outcomes are counted once, authorised by host countries and usable for compliance-linked claims. That affects credit eligibility, buyer confidence and the supply available for CORSIA Phase 2.

The Article 6 carbon market rules under the Paris Agreement remain incompletely resolved. Article 6.2 (bilateral trading between countries) and Article 6.4 (the international carbon market mechanism) both have outstanding implementation questions. CORSIA enters Phase 2 from January 2027 and depends on Article 6 corresponding adjustment frameworks being operationally available for aviation carbon credit compliance. COP31 is expected to advance the technical rules that underpin international carbon trading. For detail on why this matters for carbon credits, see our guides to CORSIA explained and how carbon credits work.

What success and failure look like

The most useful way to judge COP31 is to look for specific, measurable outcomes rather than broad political language.

Success looks like

A formal COP31 decision on fossil fuel transition that includes explicit fossil fuel language would address the decision that COP30 failed to produce. Even a framework for a phase-out roadmap with a defined timeline would represent material progress from Belém's complete silence.

NDC 3.0 synthesis showing a credible path below 2.5 degrees Celsius would be a meaningful improvement from the current 2.8 degree trajectory. Not 1.5 degrees, which is acknowledged to be beyond what current pledges can deliver, but a demonstrable narrowing of the gap.

Operational climate finance frameworks that show how the $1.3 trillion annual target is funded and delivered: specific commitments from named developed-country contributors, an agreed methodology for counting private finance, and a delivery timeline.

Article 6 resolution sufficient to give carbon market participants and CORSIA participants confidence in the corresponding adjustment framework heading into 2027.

Loss and damage fund pledges that are meaningful relative to the scale of climate-related losses in vulnerable countries would matter more than symbolic contributions.

Failure looks like

A repeat of Belém on fossil fuels: another summit at which 80-plus countries want a transition roadmap and the final text omits fossil fuels entirely. A second consecutive failure would significantly weaken the credibility of the UN climate process as a vehicle for addressing the core emissions challenge.

NDC 3.0 synthesis showing no meaningful improvement in the emissions gap would confirm that the Paris ratchet mechanism is not functioning at the pace the science requires.

Climate finance work that advances process without delivery: more committees, further consultations, delayed timelines.

Article 6 ambiguity that leaves carbon market participants uncertain about the validity of corresponding adjustments, delaying investment in eligible projects.

US UNFCCC withdrawal proceeding to formal effect in January 2027 with no signal of re-engagement from any current US administration, setting up COP32 in Addis Ababa as the first conference in a formally post-US UNFCCC world.

The meta-question

COP30 showed that the UNFCCC framework functions without the US present. COP31 must show whether it can do more than function. The Paris Agreement does not need a conference that continues. It needs conferences that accelerate. Whether the architecture, under its unusual Türkiye-Australia leadership and without the US, is capable of that acceleration is the question that COP31 will begin to answer.

Conclusion

COP31 is not a clean start. It is a continuation of unfinished work from COP28's UAE Consensus, COP29's NCQG and COP30's fossil fuel silence. It arrives at a conference in a country with a complex relationship with both fossil fuels and climate ambition, led by an unusually formal split-presidency arrangement, in the shadow of the US withdrawal.

The framework has shown it can survive without its original architect. What COP31 needs to demonstrate is that it can do more than survive. Brazil's fossil fuel roadmap, the NDC 3.0 synthesis, the NCQG operationalisation, and the Article 6 resolution are not separate agendas. They are all tests of the same underlying question: does the Paris Agreement's architecture work at sufficient ambition without the United States?

The answer, one way or another, will be clearer after Antalya.

This article will be updated in September/October 2026 as NDC 3.0 submissions are synthesised by the UNFCCC Secretariat and the pre-summit process in Fiji and Tuvalu develops.

Useful source links

• UNFCCC: The Road to Antalya
• Official COP31 Presidency website
• COP31 joint letter from President-Designate and President of Negotiations (20 May 2026)
• Türkiye-Australia Partnership Modalities
• UNEP: Emissions Gap Report 2025
• Council of the EU: 2024 international climate finance figures
• United Nations: Belém COP30 delivers climate finance boost and a pledge to plan fossil fuel transition
• Climate Policy Initiative: NCQG tracker
• World Resources Institute: COP30 progress toward $1.3 trillion and what comes next
• DW: US not sending high-level officials to COP30
• WEF: What happened at COP30 and what comes next
• GT Law: COP30 outcomes and key takeaways

The Planet Brief covers international climate policy, carbon markets and sustainable finance. For related reading, see our guides to the Paris Agreement and US withdrawal, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, CORSIA explained, SBTi explained and how carbon credits work.