COP31 Opens Today in Antalya: 12 Days of Climate Talks After a COP30 With No Plan to Phase Out Fossil Fuels
Türkiye is president, and the agenda includes electrification, fossil fuels and forests. Adaptation finance is the key dispute.
Antalya – The UN climate conference COP31 opens today, November 9, in Antalya, Türkiye, and runs until November 20. By the editorial calculation, that is 12 days of negotiations. Türkiye is host and president, and in the preparations it works with the COP30 presidency from Brazil’s Belém.
The announced agenda covers electrification, faster phase-out of fossil fuels, stronger emission-cutting commitments and Mediterranean risks: wildfires, heat waves and extreme temperatures. Among the priorities is also halting deforestation, and Türkiye’s own updated national contribution will be scrutinised. Türkiye has a net-zero goal for 2053.
Money will be at the centre. COP30 agreed to triple adaptation finance by 2035. The target for supporting developing countries is at least 300 billion dollars a year from public sources and 1.3 trillion from all sources. Experts rate that as progress, but insufficient.
Ümit Şahin of Sabancı University in Istanbul assessed that COP31 “is expected to be both ambitious and distinctive”. On the expected decisions on forests in the Amazon at COP30 he said: “Regrettably, that did not happen.” According to his centre’s analysis, a complete coal phase-out by 2036 is technically and economically feasible.
The context is difficult. At COP30 in Belém there was no time-bound plan to phase out fossil fuels or to halt deforestation. A just transition mechanism for workers and communities was created. The US was absent, after President Donald Trump announced withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which, according to Şahin, weakened the conference.
According to the announcements, leaders will meet on November 11 and 12.
What is not clear: how many delegates and how many leaders will come, whether the US will send a delegation and what exactly will be in the text of the final decision. We also did not find an announcement on who will represent North Macedonia.
The first real test is the language on fossil fuels. If at the end of the talks it also stays without a deadline, that will repeat the outcome of COP30.
MKNews Hub · Macedonia · November 9, 2026
