ANTALYA, Türkiye — The 31st United Nations climate conference, COP31, formally opened on Monday, November 9, in the Mediterranean city of Antalya, with delegates from nearly 200 countries beginning two weeks of negotiations that run until November 20 at the Antalya EXPO Center.
Source: AFP
The opening did not go smoothly. The opening ceremony started about an hour and a half late without an official explanation, after negotiators held late talks on Sunday over demands by developing nations to include climate finance items on the official agenda. Jasper Inventor, head of Greenpeace's COP31 delegation, pointed to the finance fight as the reason the start was overshadowed by dispute.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the conference, in a statement reported by Arab News: "We have entered a new age of climate extremes." He urged leaders to cut emissions faster, accelerate a just transition away from fossil fuels and deliver the finance and protection vulnerable countries need, warning that a strong El Niño and human-caused warming are fuelling more climate chaos.
Source: Arab News via Khabr
A 'moment of truth' — and Guterres's last COP
The Antalya summit is Guterres's last as UN chief — his second and final term expires at the end of the year. In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press ahead of the talks, he called this "a moment of truth" for the fight against global warming, saying: "We can no longer wait, we can no longer have endless discussions in which everybody tries to push the responsibility to someone else. Everybody must do more, everybody must do more now." He also acknowledged that scientists now expect the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C warming limit to be exceeded.
Source: Associated Press
An unusual presidency, an absent America
COP31 runs under a split arrangement that settled a hosting dispute: Türkiye holds the presidency — Environment Minister Murat Kurum is COP31 president — while Australia's Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen serves as President of Negotiations. The United States, the world's second-largest emitter after China, is not sending a delegation, after the Trump administration announced in 2025 that Washington would withdraw from the UN climate process; it is the first COP since the US left the Paris Agreement earlier this year.
Türkiye's presidency has centred the summit on electrification, with a goal of raising electricity's share of global final energy use from about a fifth today to more than 35 percent by 2035. Moving away from fossil fuels, however, is not on the formal negotiated agenda, according to reports from Antalya — a gap climate campaigners are already criticising.
Awaaz Punjab previewed the summit's opening, its expected attendance and the Antalya venue in its earlier report — read the COP31 preview here
Health day, India's seat, and what happens next
The conference opened with a dedicated Health Day, with the World Health Organization pushing for health to become a central, measurable part of climate policy; WHO estimates that 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts highly vulnerable to climate change. India arrives with a new climate plan and a central seat at the table, co-chairing mitigation consultations, and is expected to seek a decision to start a Climate Finance Work Programme, according to reports cited by DunyaDesk.
Source: DunyaDesk (Reuters, Indian Express, ThePrint, UNFCCC)
What happens next: negotiations continue through November 20, and the first big political test comes with the World Leaders' Summit on November 11-12, where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Guterres are scheduled to address heads of state and government. Whether the finance dispute that delayed Monday's opening can be settled — and whether the electrification pledge and a fossil-fuel roadmap advance without the United States — will decide whether Antalya is remembered as a delivery summit or another round of promises.