Turkey will host climate negotiators from nearly 200 countries for annual talks, just weeks after the United Nations warned the world is all but certain to blitz past a target of limiting planetary warming to 1.5C.
Yet as tens of thousands of delegates prepare for two weeks of debate from Monday at the UN’s 31st Conference of the Parties, or COP31, recent electoral surprises in the US and Brazil are offering rare optimism for advocates of faster action on global warming.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who saw off his climate skeptic opponent in the country’s poll last month, is among a modest contingent of world leaders who will travel to the coastal resort city of Antalya for part of the talks, along with counterparts including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
So what can this year’s summit deliver? Here are five things to look out for:
Geopolitical Shifts
Just weeks ago, the mood was bleak. The United Nations Environment Programme warned countries will need to deliver drastically steeper emissions cuts just to minimize so-called overshoot beyond the 2015 Paris Agreement goal to limit temperature increases above pre-industrial levels to 1.5C.
In Brazil, Flavio Bolsonaro — who had called for more development in the Amazon and looser environmental rules — was on course to win the nation’s presidential election.
Lula defied the odds to beat Bolsonaro and secure a fourth term. Brazil, host of last year’s COP30 summit, then put forward two new roadmaps intended to guide action on crucial targets — weaning the world off fossil fuels and reversing deforestation by 2030.
In the US, Democrats have new opportunities to challenge President Donald Trump’s record on climate change and environmental regulation after securing decisive majorities in both the House and Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Trump has removed the world’s largest economy from the Paris Agreement for a second time, and begun a process to withdraw the US from its underlying convention. The nation won’t have official delegates at the COP talks for a second successive year.
Countries previously concerned about harming ties to Washington could now be emboldened to take more rigorous climate action, according to Laurence Tubiana, chief executive officer of the European Climate Foundation and a principal architect of the Paris Agreement.
“COP31 is potentially a moment where the pendulum will go in the other direction,” Tubiana said. The countries most affected by climate change are “now raising their voice,” she said.
Change of Tack
Three years ago at COP28 in Dubai, the world agreed to transition away from fossil fuels, the first time such a pledge had been articulated in a decision text. Since then, little progress has been made to advance that ambition amid heavy opposition from oil-producing states.
COP31 will instead focus on something Turkey believes all countries can get on board with: electrification. The country has put forward a pledge to boost global electrification to 35% of final energy consumption by 2035. Europe wants as much of that to come from clean energy sources as possible, but even without that step, the reduction in emissions could be substantial due to greater efficiency gains.
Watch out too for more commitments to tackle methane, the potent greenhouse gas that has at least 80 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide in the first 20 years after it’s released. France has put forward a proposal to cut emissions of the gas by 75% by 2035, according to a draft paper seen by Bloomberg.
Small island states — the countries that are most exposed to rising temperatures and higher sea levels — will be pushing for language to ensure that the 1.5C goal of the Paris Agreement isn’t abandoned.
“There can be no waffling about 1.5°C,” Ilana Seid, chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said in a statement. “The suggestion that impending overshoot should justify abandoning ambition is egregious.”
Finance Fight
It wouldn’t be a COP summit without a clash over finance. This year’s talks are likely to see the issue raised even before the formal negotiations begin, in discussions over the conference agenda, which are frequently contentious.
“Climate finance for emerging markets is a major sticking point,” analysts at BloombergNEF wrote in an Oct. 29 note.
Developed nations are on the hook to deliver at least $300 billion per year of finance to developing countries by 2035, but the EU’s climate chief Wopke Hoekstra has ruled out any fresh commitments beyond that as “dead in the water.” Nevertheless, expect a lively discussion on how to triple adaptation finance, a goal that was a late addition to talks last year.
Don’t expect, however, many chief executive officers of major global banks to be in attendance, a far cry from when they turned out in droves in Dubai for COP28.
Science in Question
A surprisingly contentious topic will be the climate science that underpins the world’s efforts to combat climate change. COP31 is set to lay the foundation for the next so-called Global Stocktake to conclude at COP33 in 2028, which will judge whether countries are living up to their commitments and what more needs to be done.
An emerging risk is that negotiators won’t have key scientific reports to back them up. At a meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last month in Addis Ababa, no agreement was reached on the timeline of three key reports, meaning they may not be ready in time for the crucial COP33 summit.
India is among countries that have insisted scientists in developing countries need more time to prepare, but others are concerned it’s an effort to block progress. The IPCC is set to reconvene before the end of the year, and there will be a big push for the Antalya summit to send a strong message that those reports must be ready on time.
Hosting Duties
This year’s COP will be watched for its unusual structure, with Turkey staging the event and acting as host, while Australia oversees the technical negotiations — a compromise following their rival bids for this year’s summit.
How relations between the two unfold could be key to delivering any meaningful breakthrough. “Australia and Turkey have come together. We both bid to host COP. We both bid to be COP presidents. We sorted it out,” Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister for climate change and energy and the president of negotiations at COP31, told the Zero podcast. “We are now cooperating very, very closely, like it’s one team.”
Also in focus is which nation will stage the 2028 COP33 summit after Ethiopia acts as host for next year’s event.
Following India’s decision to withdraw as a candidate, China has considered a proposal to host the talks, people familiar with the issue said in August. The prospect is seen as an opportunity for Beijing to show greater global leadership on the issue and to exert additional control over the international process.
Published on November 8, 2026
