The 31st UN climate conference, COP31, will be held in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9 to 20 November 2026. Under an arrangement agreed at COP30 in Belém, Türkiye holds the COP presidency, hosts the World Leaders' Summit and leads the action agenda, while Australia serves as President of Negotiations, with authority over the negotiated outcomes. Australia's climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen, leads the negotiations. The two sides consult throughout, according to the agreed modalities.
Australia also leads a pre-COP meeting hosted in the Pacific, in Fiji and Tuvalu, from 5 to 8 October, intended to give ministers a chance to narrow differences before Antalya.
Deferred from Bonn
The mid-year negotiations in Bonn in June ended with several major items unresolved. Parties failed to agree texts on the Global Goal on Adaptation and on the mitigation work programme, and both were sent to COP31 under rule 16, which carries items forward without an agreed conclusion. The adaptation text remains entirely in square brackets, including a disputed reference to the Belém call to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035.
Developing countries have also pressed for the new climate finance work programme agreed in Belém to have its own agenda item at COP31, focused on Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which says developed countries "shall provide" finance. COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago wrote to request such an item. Developed countries have favoured a broader approach covering all sources of finance.
Just transition mechanism
COP30 agreed to create a just transition mechanism to support workers and communities through the shift away from fossil fuels. In Bonn, parties adopted a package of texts including the terms of reference for a review and a list of elements to be agreed for the mechanism. Its design, governance and links to finance are expected to be among the main negotiating outcomes in Antalya. Coal and oil-producing regions in South Africa, Indonesia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere are the intended beneficiaries.
The presidency's energy goals
The Turkish presidency launched action agenda priorities in June. The most prominent is a goal, not yet endorsed by governments, to raise the share of global final energy demand met by electricity from just over 20% today to 35% by 2035. It also set goals to reduce energy consumption intensity in buildings by 25% by 2035, to halve the growth of global waste and to raise the use of circular materials. Bowen has said the action agenda is separate from the negotiations and does not require consensus.
An electrification goal of that scale would imply very large growth in power demand, generation and grid investment worldwide. It aligns with trends already under way, including electric vehicles, heat pumps, industrial electrification and data centres. The IEA estimated that global data centre electricity use rose 17% in 2025.
Fossil fuels outside the text
At COP30, dozens of countries backed a roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels, but it was not included in the decision. The Brazilian presidency has been developing roadmaps outside the formal process, and a conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels was held in Santa Marta, Colombia, earlier in 2026. Whether the roadmap discussion enters the formal negotiations in Antalya is uncertain, given opposition from major oil and gas producers.
Trade and CBAM
The EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism entered its definitive period on 1 January 2026, requiring importers of covered goods above a 50-tonne annual threshold to be authorised declarants. Certificate sales begin on 1 February 2027, and the first annual declaration and surrender, covering 2026 imports, is due by 30 September 2027. At Bonn, the first UN dialogue on climate and trade saw developing countries argue that measures such as CBAM raise compliance costs and restrict market access, while the EU defended them as addressing environmental externalities. Trade is likely to feature again in Antalya.
Finance context
Climate finance from developed countries reached a record $136.7 billion in 2024, according to official figures cited by Carbon Brief, but aid cuts since then, particularly by the United States, are likely to have reduced public climate spending. The United States left the Paris Agreement on 27 January 2026 and has not sent high-level delegations to UN climate talks. The new collective quantified goal set at COP29 calls for $300 billion a year for developing countries by 2035, with an aspiration of $1.3 trillion from all sources.
The Fund for responding to Loss and Damage deferred its first project approvals to its December board meeting, after receiving 176 requests worth about $2.8 billion against $342 million available. Countries such as Pakistan, Jamaica and small island states will press for new pledges.
The climate backdrop
The conference meets after a summer of record heat. Copernicus reported that August 2026 tied July 2023 as the warmest month on record, at 1.65°C above pre-industrial levels, and that western Europe had its hottest summer. A strengthening El Niño raises the chance of record global temperatures in 2027. The WMO reported in March that ocean heat content and the Earth's energy imbalance reached record highs in 2025.
Science disputes
Disagreements over climate science also surfaced in Bonn, including over references to the 1.5°C goal and to the IPCC. Countries have failed for five consecutive IPCC meetings to agree the timeline for its seventh assessment report, with some seeking alignment with the second global stocktake, which begins at COP31 and concludes in 2028. That stocktake will assess collective progress, including on the energy commitments made at COP28.
Methane
Methane is likely to feature in side events and initiatives. The IEA's Global Methane Tracker 2026 found no fall in energy-sector methane emissions in 2025 and estimated that abatement could make close to 200 bcm of gas a year available to markets, a point given added weight by the disruption to LNG supply.
Next host
COP32 will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2027, the first COP hosted by a least developed country.
What to watch
Key items include the outcome of the pre-COP in the Pacific, whether the finance work programme is placed on the agenda, agreement on adaptation indicators and finance language, the design of the just transition mechanism, any new finance pledges, and how the presidency's electrification goal is received by governments.