COP31 Antalya Climate Change Conference

COP 31 Antalya Climate Change Conference
COP is the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The Conference of the Parties is the supreme decision-making body of the UNFCCC, which was adopted in 1992.
COP31 will be hosted by Türkiye in Antalya on 9-20 November 2026.
Where Dialogue Becomes Global Action

9 November
Canada’s credibility on the line at COP31 as it defends fossil fuel expansion while trumpeting clean energy
U.S. retreat from climate, foreign aid leaves opening for middle powers like Canada, experts say
Canada heads to the UN’s annual climate summit, COP31, defending its fossil fuel expansion at home while seeking influence on clean energy, climate finance and the global transition away from fossil fuels.
(CBC)   With the U.S. retreating from international climate diplomacy, Canada has an opening to play a larger role in the negotiations. But experts say recent climate-policy rollbacks at home could complicate its efforts to do so.
“We feel like Canada’s credibility is on the line,” said Pratishtha Singh, international diplomacy manager at Climate Action Network Canada, a non-governmental group.
It is the first [COP] since the U.S., under President Donald Trump, pulled out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, although his administration largely boycotted the previous COP30 summit as well.
That withdrawal could leave more room for so-called middle powers such as Canada, which has historically supported international climate diplomacy and co-operation.
Canada does not appear to be shying away from the UN process despite its recent climate-policy rollbacks. A significant diplomatic contingent, led by federal Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin, will attend COP31, along with a dedicated Canada Pavilion hosting side events involving government, think tanks and NGO groups.

8 November
Cop31 must deliver climate progress that people can see is real, host says
High-stakes talks involving 190 countries begin on Monday as world grapples with El Niño supercharged by fossil fuels
(The Guardian) The Cop31 summit must produce progress, “a tangible outcome … that people can see is real”, its host has said as scores of world leaders and representatives of close to 190 countries gather in Turkey for the UN climate talks.
The high-stakes meeting begins on Monday, as countries around the world grapple with the strongest El Niño weather system on record, supercharged by fossil fuels, which is set to take hundreds of thousands of lives and cause damage costing trillions of dollars.
Friction is expected between the rich and poor worlds over who pays for the impacts of the climate crisis, and the slow pace of cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Temperatures have broken records this year, surpassing the limit of 1.5C above preindustrial levels aimed for in the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
Adão Soares Barbosa, the chair of the Least Developed Countries, a negotiating group of 44 nations, said: “Keeping 1.5C within reach by minimising the duration and magnitude of the overshoot, delivering accessible and predictable climate finance, strengthening adaptation, and addressing loss and damage [caused to poor countries by extreme weather] are not political choices but matters of survival. The credibility of the Paris agreement will be measured not by promises made, but by commitments fulfilled, and lives protected in vulnerable countries.”
Upgrading power grids to accommodate renewable energy is a key issue at climate talks
(AP) Outdated power grids are a major hurdle in the transition to renewable energy, since older systems often can’t absorb all the electricity from new, cleaner sources.
This threatens global efforts to curb climate change by reducing fossil fuels and switching to renewable energy such as solar and wind. At United Nations climate talks kicking off this week, co-hosts Turkey and Australia want more ambitious goals to slash fossil fuels, install renewables and upgrade grids.
Grid concerns are gaining urgency this year as nations race to improve their energy security following the Iran war. The U.N. recently launched a new initiative to rally funding for grid upgrades in Africa and Southeast Asia.
“There needs to be a massive, massive, massive scaling up of investments into grids if we are going to get close to meeting our climate, energy and development goals,” Selwin Hart, special adviser to the U.N. secretary-general on climate action, said.

11 September
This climate problem isn’t on the UN agenda — data centers
The slow moving climate talks are struggling to address one of the world’s biggest drivers of rising energy demand.
(Politico) The disruptive technology that’s plunging the world into an energy race won’t be part of the debate when nearly every country meets in November to discuss climate change.
The artificial intelligence building boom and its attendant forecasts of skyrocketing electricity demand, new natural gas plants and the potential for accelerating greenhouse gases are nowhere on the agenda for the United Nations climate talks in Turkey.
That’s raising questions about the U.N.’s slow motion bureaucracy and whether it’s nimble enough to confront the surging pace of data center construction in the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest sources of climate pollution.
AI and the data centers underpinning it haven’t made the formal cut for the conference in Turkey because no country has proposed that the issue be included, according to a COP31 official.
The U.N. climate talks have formally addressed data centers’ impact just once. Tucked into the outcome agreement from the 2023 talks in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was a paragraph focused on how AI could help find solutions for climate change. At the end, it noted that the technology could also pose “challenges and risks” to the environment.
Under the COP’s so-called action agenda — meant to boost voluntary climate efforts — this year’s hosts have made electrification a priority by proposing that 35 percent of global energy use come from electricity by 2035. Data centers are closely connected to that objective, which calls for meeting growing energy demand through “cleaner power, stronger grids and greater energy efficiency,” said Halil Hasar, chief climate diplomacy officer for the COP31 presidency.
“The key climate question is not simply how much electricity data centers consume, but how that additional electricity demand is met,” Hasar said in an email. …
The surging power requirements from data centers are competing for space at COP31. Top issues on the agenda include taking steps to fulfill the 2023 pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, addressing adaptation goals and bolstering economic support for poor countries on the frontlines of global warming.
Anne Rasmussen, the lead negotiator for a group of small-island nations known as AOSIS, said her coalition doesn’t have a position on data centers, but the countries are concerned about any significant new demand for global energy.
“Technological progress must come hand in hand with the rapid decarbonisation of the global energy system,” she said in a statement. “We absolutely cannot afford to build the technologies of tomorrow on the destructive systems of the past.”
In the U.S., the priority for data center developers is speed, which means they’re taking whatever power they can get. It comes as President Donald Trump has rejected climate science and withdrawn from international efforts to address warming, including the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.