Delegates from nearly 200 countries arrive in Antalya, Türkiye, on Monday for COP31, the annual UN climate summit, with two weeks to move from pledges to construction.
Dates, venue and who runs it
The conference runs from November 9 to 20. Türkiye hosts, and environment minister Murat Kurum has been nominated as COP president. Australia's Chris Bowen will serve as president of negotiations, splitting the role between the host country and the one that led the negotiating bloc.
The opening days are given to a leaders' summit, followed by technical negotiations and ministerial sessions. Around 11 days of programmed meetings are planned, with side events for business, cities and civil society.
The backdrop
The UN frames this year's meeting against record-breaking temperatures, escalating climate impacts and growing energy insecurity. The past two years set global heat records, and a strong El Niño is near its peak, which tends to push temperatures higher again.
Politics has moved the other way in the largest historical emitter. Washington has scrapped federal limits on carbon pollution from power plants and is dismantling several climate programs. This week's US midterms handed Congress to Democrats, who have promised oversight of those rollbacks but cannot restore the rules on their own.
Clean energy deployment keeps growing elsewhere, mostly in Asia. Adaptation finance is the live fight: how much rich countries pay for floods, heat and crop losses in poorer ones, and whether the money arrives as grants or loans.
What to watch
Three things will decide whether Antalya counts as progress. First, whether countries submit stronger 2035 targets. Second, whether the work program on adaptation finance produces numbers rather than language. Third, whether the conference keeps its rules intact as the US delegation presses against them.
Negotiators have learned to expect little from opening statements and almost everything from the final 48 hours, when ministers arrive and the text is cut down to what can be agreed.