COP31 opens in Antalya amid row over $305B adaptation gap

The COP31 climate conference opened in Antalya, Türkiye, on Monday, Nov. 9, after negotiators argued into the early hours over whether climate finance items belonged on the official agenda.

The UN says developing countries will need $305 billion a year by 2035 to adapt to climate change, nearly 10 times what they now receive from wealthy nations, according to an Agence France-Presse report. A senior European Union official warned last week there would be “no political will” for extra funding pledges at the meeting, AFP reported.

The conference runs until Friday, Nov. 20, and nearly 200 countries are taking part, UN News reported. More than 90,000 people were expected in Antalya, it said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged leaders in a statement to “get serious by cutting emissions faster, accelerating a just transition from fossil fuels and delivering the finance and protection vulnerable countries need,” AFP reported. He said the world has “entered a new age of climate extremes.”

Simon Stiell, executive secretary of UN Climate Change, told the opening plenary that progress is “nowhere near” fast or fair enough, UN News and Xinhua reported. The two outlets quote the wording slightly differently. Stiell also said “no single conference can bridge the chasm between the science and reality,” according to UN News.

Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s environment minister, took the gavel as COP31 president. “We know that delay carries one of the heaviest costs in climate action,” he said, according to AFP.

Kurum outlined a “35-by-35 Global Electrification Pledge” that would lift electricity’s share of global energy use from about 20 per cent today to 35 per cent by 2035, Xinhua reported. AFP said the European Union wants that electrification to be “clean,” which could cause friction.

Australia’s climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen, leads the negotiations under an arrangement agreed at COP30 that settled a dispute over who would host the talks. “The countries that need climate finance the most are getting it the least,” Bowen said, according to Xinhua. He promised a “concrete, action-oriented final decision by the end of the conference.”

The agenda fight was over finance. A source told AFP that a climate finance work programme would be on the agenda, but that African countries’ push for a separate item on tripling adaptation finance was rejected. That topic will be discussed under other items instead.

Jasper Inventor, head of Greenpeace’s COP31 delegation, said developed countries took a “hard line” on including a COP30 platform for discussing how wealthy nations should fund poorer ones. “This has already been a difficult start for COP31,” he said, according to AFP.

The opening ceremony started an hour and a half late, and AFP said no explanation was given. Maina Talia, Tuvalu’s climate minister, said the conference “must respond to the overshoot to save countries like mine from disappearance.”

The UN warned in September that warming would likely exceed 1.5 C above preindustrial levels. We reported that finding in our story on the UN saying 1.5 C is out of reach.

The United States has not sent administration officials to Antalya, AFP reported, though a congressional delegation is expected. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to address the conference later this week.

None of the reports we read named a Canadian minister or delegation at the opening, so we cannot say yet who is representing Canada in the finance talks. Adaptation funding from wealthy countries is the central dispute, and Canada is among those donors. Before the conference, we reported that only 77 leaders were listed for COP31, down from 116 at COP28. In October, we also reported that Prime Minister Mark Carney said Candu reactors have “good chances” in a Turkish nuclear bid.

What to watch next is whether negotiators can turn the finance work programme into a decision by Nov. 20, and how many leaders attend later this week. Bowen has said he wants a political decision shaped throughout the conference, not left to the final days, UN News reported.

Via UN News, Agence France-Presse (as published by Turkish Minute and Malay Mail) and Xinhua.

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