COP31

The 31st UN Climate Change Conference, or COP31, will be held in 2026 and is a very important meeting for the whole world. It happens right after the first big check-up on global climate efforts, called the Global Stocktake (GST), and after countries finished setting a new money target, the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), at COP30. Because of these events, COP31 has a clear job: to quickly move countries from just talking about climate action to actually putting those plans into practice all over the world.

This conference is mainly focused on making sure the promises made in the Paris Agreement are carried out. The agreement has three main parts: reducing pollution (mitigation), preparing for climate change effects (adaptation), and funding all this work (climate finance). During the meetings, countries will focus on turning their big goals into actions they can measure, spending money on what they promised, and making sure the advice from the GST is properly used in their national plans with strong international support.

The things countries agree upon and the paths they set out in Antalya will directly impact whether we can still reach the Paris Agreement’s main goal: keeping global warming below the dangerous 1.5°C limit. The joint leadership of the conference has a major responsibility to keep everyone focused on this urgent goal. They must check if the new national climate plans, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs 3.0), are strong enough, and they must push for clear results that close the gap between what we are doing now and what we need to do to protect the planet.