UN
The COP31 Leaders’ Summit opened in Antalya on 11 November. UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged world leaders to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for fairer and more accessible climate finance.
More than 70 heads of state and government and senior officials are addressing the two-day summit at the Antalya Expo Center. It marks the moment COP31 moves from technical negotiations to political decisions, before the conference closes on 20 November. The leaders of the world’s three largest emitters, the United States, China and India, did not attend.
“The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us,” Guterres told the leaders. He warned that the world is on course to overshoot the 1.5°C limit and accused the fossil fuel lobby of delaying climate action. He called on countries to phase out unabated coal by 2040, cut oil and gas use by a third and reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent a year. He noted that current national climate plans deliver only about a third of the cuts needed.
On finance, Guterres urged developed countries to deliver the $300 billion a year for developing countries agreed at COP29, to triple adaptation finance by 2035 and to ensure early warning systems cover everyone. This was his last climate summit address as Secretary-General.
Erdoğan, hosting a COP leaders’ summit in Türkiye for the first time, said COP31 should be a conference of implementation. “We chose to light a candle instead of shaking a fist at the darkness,” he said. He urged developed countries to take greater responsibility for cutting emissions and providing finance, and called for easier access to funding and technology for developing countries and small island states. He pointed to Türkiye’s 2053 net-zero target, renewables’ share of more than 60 percent of its installed power capacity, and the Zero Waste initiative. He also drew attention to the environmental destruction caused by the war in Gaza.
Negotiations on emissions, adaptation and climate finance continue in Antalya until 20 November.
