The leaders' segment of COP31 ended in Antalya on Thursday, leaving negotiators ten days to settle the question that has stalled every climate summit since Paris: who pays for adaptation, and how much. The conference runs from November 9 to 20 under a shared Turkish and Australian presidency, the first split presidency in the history of the UN climate convention.
What was settled
Heads of state largely repeated existing pledges. COP31 president Murat Kurum, Turkey's environment minister, has organised the summit around implementation rather than new agreements, with an action agenda covering clean energy and electrification, zero waste and methane reduction, and climate-resilient cities. The presidency has also promoted voluntary pledges, including a 35-by-35 initiative. Australia's Chris Bowen leads the formal negotiations. Officials have been careful to say no landmark deal is expected.
The money gap
At the centre of the talks is the New Collective Quantified Goal agreed at COP29, which calls for at least $300 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2035. Developing countries say the figure is too small relative to need, and that most of it is loans rather than grants. Small island states and African delegations argue that adaptation projects, unlike solar farms, generate no revenue to repay debt.
The UN Environment Programme's 2026 emissions gap report, released before the summit, found that holding warming to 1.5C is no longer achievable and that emissions would have to fall 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040 compared with 2025 levels to stay below 2C. Current national commitments do not deliver that. Scientists also confirmed 2026 as another year of record heat, and a strong El Niño is expected to intensify impacts next year.
Next ten days
On Friday the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund sign a framework agreement at the Climate Funds Pavilion in the blue zone, intended to align how the two funds approve and co-finance projects. The Adaptation Fund has backed more than 233 projects in over 100 countries, reaching about 126 million people. Practical coordination matters because the funds are the channels through which any new money would actually reach a ministry or a district water authority.
Ministers arrive next week for the high-level segment. Watch three texts: the Global Goal on Adaptation, the mitigation work programme, and the finance decision that follows from the $300 billion goal. If those land, Antalya will be judged a working summit. If they slip, the gap between promises and budgets widens for another year.