COP31 Antalya 2026: Dates, Venue, Who Is Going and What Is at Stake

COP31 takes place from Monday November 9 to Friday November 20, 2026. The World Leaders' Summit is scheduled for November 11-12, on days three and four of the conference, rather than on the opening days as at previous COPs. UN climate talks often overrun their official closing date by a day or more, and some Turkish media already give November 21 as the end. Sources: Wikipedia, Climate Home News, Yeni Şafak.

In Antalya, Türkiye, on the country's Mediterranean coast. The venue is the Antalya Expo Center. Türkiye had first said the leaders' summit would be held in Istanbul, but a letter from the presidency in April 2026 moved it to Antalya as well. Antalya is on Türkiye time (UTC+3), which in November is 2 hours ahead of Paris and Berlin, 3 hours ahead of London and 8 hours ahead of New York. Sources: Wikipedia, Climate Home News.

Murat Kurum, Türkiye's Minister of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change, is COP31 President. Australia's Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, is Vice-President and President of Negotiations, presiding over the formal negotiations. Türkiye leads the Action Agenda, the non-negotiated part of the summit. Other appointments include Fatma Varank (COP31 CEO), Samed Ağırbaş (Climate High-Level Champion) and Sally Higgins, an Australian cattle farmer, as Youth Climate Champion. Sources: Wikipedia, Climate Home News.

Both countries bid to host the 2026 summit, and UN rules require consensus. Australia had campaigned for about three years to host in Adelaide, with Pacific support, while Türkiye refused to withdraw. Without a deal, the conference would have defaulted to Bonn. After a week of talks at COP30 in Belém in November 2025, they agreed that Türkiye hosts and holds the presidency while Australia withdraws its bid and runs the negotiations, plus a pre-COP in the Pacific. It is the first UN climate summit with presidency powers split between two countries. Sources: Wikipedia, AFP/France 24, Climate Home News.

It is about who has the last word. On September 10, 2026, in Trabzon, Kurum told reporters that "Türkiye and Australia are not co-presidents" and that "the final decision lies with the presidency of COP31", while describing the relationship as "good harmony". The official modalities document gives Australia's representative "exclusive authority" over the negotiations and says any disagreement is consulted on until resolved "to mutual satisfaction". Australia did not reply directly; its team pointed to Bowen's June statement that the two countries are "working together seamlessly and with one goal". Asked earlier who would close the summit, Bowen answered: "Kurum and I... Together." Analysts quoted by AFP warn that unclear roles could distract from the substance. Sources: Climate Home News, AFP/France 24.

The pre-COP ministerial meeting was held in Nadi, Fiji, on October 5-8, 2026, with a one-day leaders' event in Tuvalu on October 6, organised by Fiji, Tuvalu, Australia and the UNFCCC. Officials from around 50 countries attended. It endorsed the Taku Pakasoa Declaration, which calls for protecting the 1.5°C limit, direct and grant-based climate finance, and reaffirms the goals to triple renewables, double energy efficiency and transition away from fossil fuels. Kurum called 1.5°C "a matter of survival" for the Pacific. The Pacific Resilience Facility has about $200 million pledged (roughly $15 million at the pre-COP) against a $500 million target by COP31. Turnout of non-Pacific leaders was low, which Bowen defended. Sources: PINA, Climate Home News, Australian climate ministry.

The main negotiated issues include: the response to countries' new climate plans (NDCs), which remain far from a 1.5°C pathway; climate finance, including access for small island states and the poorest countries; the just transition mechanism created at COP30, whose operation is due to be decided in Türkiye; adaptation; and the unresolved question of a fossil fuel transition roadmap. Türkiye's Action Agenda covers priorities such as zero waste, oceans, food security, climate-resilient cities, green industrialisation, clean energy and electrification, youth and health. Kurum said the Action Agenda has no explicit fossil fuel initiative but that electrification would reduce fossil fuel use. Sources: C2ES, Climate Home News, Yeni Şafak.

COP30's headline Global Mutirão decision called for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035, launched the Belém Mission to 1.5 and a Global Implementation Accelerator, a two-year work programme on climate finance (Article 9.1) and a first dialogue on trade. Parties adopted 59 adaptation indicators and agreed to create a just transition mechanism, to be made operational in November 2026. A fossil fuel roadmap was not written into the decision: more than 80 countries backed a call for one, and the Brazilian presidency took the work forward outside the formal process. The "Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T" on scaling finance for developing countries to $1.3 trillion a year was also published. Sources: C2ES, SEI.

No, according to the UN's latest published synthesis. The UNFCCC update of November 2025, covering 113 Parties and about 69% of global emissions, projected emissions in 2035 about 12% below 2019 levels, while the IPCC 1.5°C pathway requires a cut of around 60% by 2035. Kurum himself said in September 2026 that keeping warming to 1.5°C is no longer possible and that limiting it to "around 1.5C" would be a success. Sources: UNFCCC, Climate Home News.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and UN Secretary-General António Guterres are to welcome leaders, and Erdoğan, Guterres and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are scheduled to speak at the opening ceremony of the leaders' summit, according to Türkiye's deputy foreign minister. Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has said he will attend, although Türkiye does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus, and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman says he has been invited. Turkish media project around 70 heads of state or government and more than 80,000 participants, but these are estimates, not official UN figures. Sources: Yeni Şafak, Cyprus Mail, Hürriyet Daily News.

No official US participation had been announced as of October 21, 2026. The US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement took effect on January 27, 2026, and the Trump administration has also moved to leave the UN climate convention (UNFCCC) itself. At COP30 in 2025, the US sent no official delegation, a first in COP history. A Turkish hotel-industry source claimed Donald Trump would attend, but no confirmation from the White House has been found. Sources: E&E News, Carbon Brief.

The UNFCCC traditionally webcasts the opening, the plenary sessions and press conferences live on its website, and the official COP31 sites are cop31.tr and unfccc.int/cop31. Remember the time difference: Antalya is on UTC+3, so a 10:00 session is 7:00 in London, 8:00 in Paris and 2:00 in New York. News channels and agencies usually cover the leaders' summit on November 11-12 and the final night of negotiations live. Sources: UNFCCC, Wikipedia.

COP32 will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2027. Several COP30 decisions, including the work on adaptation indicators (the "Belém-Addis vision"), run through to that conference. Sources: Wikipedia, C2ES, Climate Home News.