The 31st UN Climate Change Conference, or COP31, will be held in 2026 and is a very important meeting for the whole world. It happens right after the first big check-up on global climate efforts, called the Global Stocktake (GST), and after countries finished setting a new money target, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), at COP30. Because of these events, COP31 has a clear job: to quickly move countries from just talking about climate action to actually putting those plans into practice all over the world.
This conference is mainly focused on making sure the promises made in the Paris Agreement are carried out. The agreement has three main parts: reducing pollution (mitigation), preparing for climate change effects (adaptation), and funding all this work (climate finance). During the meetings, countries will focus on turning their big goals into actions they can measure, spending money on what they promised, and making sure the advice from the GST is properly used in their national plans with strong international support.
The things countries agree upon and the paths they set out in Antalya will directly impact whether we can still reach the Paris Agreement’s main goal: keeping global warming below the dangerous 1.5°C limit. The joint leadership of the conference has a major responsibility to keep everyone focused on this urgent goal. They must check if the new national climate plans, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs 3.0), are strong enough, and they must push for clear results that close the gap between what we are doing now and what we need to do to protect the planet.
What is COP31?
COP31 is the annual supreme decision-making body of the UNFCCC, serving as the Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP), the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP), and the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA). This gathering brings together the 198 Parties (197 states and the European Union) to review the implementation of the Convention and the Paris Agreement and to continue the process of intergovernmental negotiations.
The primary function of COP31 will be to operationalise the outcomes derived from preceding conferences, particularly focusing on the post-2025 financial architecture and the synthesis of the collective response to the Global Stocktake. It is fundamentally a mechanism for enhancing collective ambition through international co-operation, supported by robust multilateral frameworks.
Why the Conference Matters: Addressing the Global Stocktake Gap
COP31’s importance is inextricably linked to the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement. The GST conclusively identified that the world is collectively off-track to meet the 1.5°C limit and highlighted a significant ambition and implementation gap across all negotiation pillars.
Scientific Context: The Emissions Gap Reality
Scientific consensus, as reflected in the IPCC and UNEP Emissions Gap Reports, forms the urgent background for COP31. Current aggregate Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are projected to lead to warming significantly above the 1.5°C limit, even when conditional pledges are included. The GST confirmed that peaking global emissions must occur rapidly, with deep reductions required immediately after 2025.
- Required Reduction: To limit warming to 1.5°C, global net greenhouse gas emissions must decline by approximately 43% by 2030, relative to 2019 levels. This is the global benchmark for NDCs 3.0 scrutiny.
- Current Trajectory: Based on current unconditional pledges, the projected warming remains closer to 2.8°C by the end of the century. This substantial gap validates the shift to an implementation focus at COP31.
- COP31 Mandate: The conference must secure and operationalize pathways that drastically increase the ambition and scope of the NDCs 3.0 to close this critical pre-2030 emissions gap, ensuring all countries demonstrate verifiable domestic policy delivery.
The conference provides a political mandate for the following actions:
- NDC Scrutiny: Assessing the level of ambition in the new round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs 3.0), which Parties were requested to submit by 2025, ensuring they are informed by the GST and align with the 1.5°C pathway.
- Financial Mobilisation: Operationalising the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance, agreed at COP30, and ensuring its resource mobilisation reflects the needs of developing and vulnerable nations.
- Implementation Acceleration: Shifting the focus from agreeing on rules to accelerating the real-world implementation of climate policies, including the global energy transition and adaptation measures.
- Vulnerability Focus: Using the unique host arrangement (Türkiye/Australia/Pacific) to maintain and elevate the global focus on the existential threat faced by Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and the urgent requirement for adaptation and Loss and Damage funding.
Host Country and Presidency Arrangements
Following consultation within the Western European and Others Group (WEOG), a consensus was formally reached at COP30 establishing a unique dual leadership model to ensure continuity in the multilateral process.
Summary of Host Modalities
- Physical Host: The conference and the World Leaders Summit will be physically hosted by Türkiye in the city of Antalya. Türkiye is nominated to be elected as the formal COP31 President, handling all operational and logistical requirements.
- Negotiation Leadership: A representative of Australia (Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen) will serve as the President of Negotiations. This role is vested with "exclusive authority in relation to the negotiations," covering the agenda, draft texts, and appointment of co-facilitators.
- Diplomatic Rationale: This arrangement was devised to avoid a prolonged diplomatic impasse, which would have automatically defaulted the conference to Bonn, Germany, risking a year without focused political negotiation leadership.
- Pacific Pre-COP: A special Pre-COP meeting will be hosted in a Pacific Island Country, co-led by Australia and the Pacific, focusing on SIDS' climate impacts and serving as a pledging event for the Pacific Resilience Facility.
- SIDS Focus Session: COP31 will include a dedicated high-level session in Antalya focused on the climate finance needs of Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
Key UNFCCC Negotiation Areas Relevant to COP31
The thematic negotiation tracks will focus on practical implementation and institutional finalization of mandates established in the preceding COPs.
1. Mitigation and NDCs
- Core Focus: Scrutiny of the collective ambition reflected in the new generation of NDCs (NDCs 3.0) submitted by 2025, ensuring their alignment with the 1.5°C limit.
- Key Mandates: Formalisation of mechanisms to implement the commitment to triple global renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030, as encouraged by the GST outcome. This requires Parties to demonstrate comprehensive policy tools for transitioning energy systems and reducing reliance on high-emitting fossil fuels across transport and industry.
- Implementation Challenge: The primary challenge is ensuring NDCs are economy-wide and fully funded, moving beyond aspirational targets to include mandatory domestic policies and investment frameworks capable of delivering required 2030 emission cuts. Parties must provide clarity on pathways away from unabated coal power generation and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
2. Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA)
- Core Focus: Moving the GGA into its implementation phase by establishing clear, measurable frameworks, indicators, and support metrics for monitoring collective progress toward its seven targets.
- GGA Thematic Targets: The GGA addresses critical areas including water security, food production, health systems, ecosystems resilience, infrastructure protection, poverty eradication, and adaptation planning cycles.
- Key Mandates: Addressing the severe Adaptation Finance Gap and defining pathways for the tripling of adaptation finance, with targeted support for vulnerable communities. This involves identifying sustainable sources of finance and streamlining access to funds, particularly for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and SIDS through simpler disbursement pathways.
3. Climate Finance and the NCQG
- Core Focus: Operationalisation of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), setting the post-2025 finance goal from a floor of USD 100 billion per year, which was adopted at COP30.
- Key Mandates: Discussions on the composition of the NCQG (grants vs. loans), governance, and initial mobilisation efforts. Negotiation focuses on securing commitments from a broader contributor base (including emerging economies and the private sector) and ensuring the financial goal addresses both mitigation and adaptation needs equitably.
- Implementation Challenge: Defining clear methodologies for tracking public and private finance flows under the NCQG and ensuring the mandated biennial high-level ministerial dialogue (HLMD) on climate finance yields concrete, verifiable funding pledges to increase predictability of support.
4. Loss and Damage Funding
- Core Focus: Practical implementation of the Loss and Damage Fund architecture, including finalising governance structures for disbursement and securing sustained financial commitments beyond initial pledges.
- Governance Challenge: Addressing the ongoing political sensitivities regarding the fund's replenishment, the definition of eligible recipients, and the speed of disbursement to ensure funds reach communities facing irreversible climate impacts. This involves defining the role of the World Bank as the interim host and transitioning to an independent secretariat.
- Key Mandates: Reviewing the work of the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage to ensure timely technical assistance, knowledge sharing, and network formation to nations facing climate-related permanent damages. This aims to bridge the gap between financial pledges and on-the-ground needs.
5. Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF)
- Core Focus: A mid-term political check-in on the implementation readiness of the ETF, which requires all Parties to submit their first Biennial Transparency Reports (BTR1) by the end of 2024.
- Reporting Requirement: BTR1 is mandatory for all Parties and must provide comprehensive data on national greenhouse gas inventories, progress toward NDCs, and climate finance support. The ETF aims for greater stringency and comparability than previous reporting mechanisms (MRV).
- Key Mandates: Negotiating capacity-building support for developing countries to meet new reporting requirements, ensuring the framework is robust, universally applied, and capable of informing future GST cycles with credible, comparable data. This requires finalising technical expert review guidelines and establishing a large pool of qualified national reviewers.
6. Carbon Markets (Article 6 of the Paris Agreement)
- Core Focus: Finalisation of outstanding technical details related to Article 6 (co-operative approaches and the new centralised mechanism) to unlock international carbon co-operation.
- Sticking Points: Resolving critical ambiguities related to the mechanism under Article 6.4, particularly surrounding the authorization of emission reductions for international transfer, rules for the *share of proceeds* to adaptation funds, and ensuring robust *corresponding adjustments* to prevent double-counting.
- Key Mandates: Establishing clear operational guidance to ensure that any market mechanisms fully protect environmental integrity, demonstrate additionality, and contribute demonstrably to enhanced ambition, as mandated by the Paris Agreement Rulebook finalized at COP26.
Context from Previous COPs
The COP31 agenda is a direct continuation of mandates established in the preceding cycle of climate conferences, each building upon the legal and operational framework of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.
This progression illustrates the specific mandates transferred to COP31:
- COP28 (Dubai, UAE): Concluded the first Global Stocktake, delivering the UAE Consensus, which provided guidance across all thematic areas and initiated the dialogue on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems. This Consensus provides the foundation for the ambition level expected at COP31.
- COP29 (Baku, Azerbaijan): Focused predominantly on Climate Finance, concluding the formal negotiation and adoption of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). This outcome transfers the responsibility for resource mobilisation and operational governance of the goal directly to COP31.
- COP30 (Belém, Brazil): Emphasised forest protection, biodiversity, and the intersection of climate action with Indigenous rights. Key negotiation points included the finalisation of implementation plans that directly inform the work of the Australian President of Negotiations for COP31.
Official Milestones and Preparatory Timeline (2026)
The preparatory period is governed by the standard UNFCCC calendar, ensuring a structured, transparent negotiation process leading up to the conference in Antalya.
Early 2026: Post-COP30 Consultations
Australia (President of Negotiations) begins consultation, appoints co-facilitators, and prepares initial draft negotiation texts, setting the thematic direction for the year.
Mid-2026: SB 64 Sessions (Bonn, Germany)
Intersessional meetings for technical work (SBSTA) and implementation review (SBI), advancing draft negotiation texts for COP31 across all negotiation tracks.
Throughout 2026: NDC Submissions Review
Parties submit new NDCs (NDCs 3.0), which are synthesized by the UNFCCC Secretariat to inform the political debate and expose the remaining emissions gap at COP31.
Late 2026: Pacific Pre-COP Meeting
High-level ministerial meeting to focus on SIDS' finance needs and act as the final political pressure point ahead of the main conference, seeking pledges for the Pacific Resilience Facility.
November 2026: COP31 (Antalya, Türkiye)
The 31st Conference of the Parties convenes in Antalya, Türkiye, for the conclusion of the 2026 UNFCCC negotiation cycle.
COP31 marks the crucial transition to implementation following the mandates of the Global Stocktake. With Türkiye hosting and Australia leading negotiations, the world will prioritize closing the emissions gap, securing the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance, and fully operationalizing adaptation and loss and damage support. The focus remains on translating multilateral commitments into verifiable national policy actions before the 2030 deadline.
Official Reference Links
For detailed, official documentation and information regarding the negotiation process and implementation mandates, consult the following authoritative bodies: