Climate & Environment
COP31 Set to Address Climate Finance, Fossil Fuels and El Niño Amid Global Turmoil
The United Nations climate summit, COP31, will begin next week in Antalya, Türkiye, as almost 200 countries gather to discuss climate finance, fossil fuels and the impacts of global warming. The conference, running from 9 to 20 November, will feature two tracks. The formal negotiations, chaired by Australia’s climate and energy minister Chris Bowen, will focus on securing $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance for developing nations, supporting vulnerable countries to adapt to climate shocks and determining the future of fossil fuels. The second track will cover the host’s voluntary initiatives, including cleaner cities, waste reduction, healthier oceans and a goal to raise electricity’s share of global energy supply to 35 % by 2035, up from 23 % today.
India is expected to push for an equitable outcome, urging developed countries to honour commitments on climate finance, adaptation support and technology transfer. At a UN event in October, India stressed that climate action must respect differing circumstances and development needs and warned against unilateral trade measures such as the European Union’s carbon border tax, which raises costs for Indian steel and other exports. New Delhi will also seek adaptation support for vulnerable communities and a just transition framework to protect livelihoods. It will highlight its achievement of 50 % non‑fossil power capacity in 2025, five years ahead of target, and its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for 2031‑35, which includes a 47 % reduction in GDP emissions intensity by 2035 from 2005 levels and a 60 % share for non‑fossil sources in installed power capacity.
COP30, held in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, produced a compromise deal in which countries agreed to work toward tripling adaptation finance by 2035 and reaffirmed the goal of mobilising $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance by then. The deal also established a just transition mechanism to protect workers as economies decarbonise. However, it avoided setting a roadmap for moving away from fossil fuels, with Brazil’s presidency saying it would pursue voluntary roadmaps on fossil fuels and deforestation instead.
According to the UN’s Emissions Gap Report 2026, released on 21 October, the chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre‑industrial levels has been lost. Warming is expected to breach that threshold and peak at 1.7‑1.8 °C around mid‑century. The report notes that a return to the 1.5 °C pathway by 2100 remains possible, but would require cutting emissions by about 18 % by 2030, 45 % by 2035 and 69 % by 2040 from 2025 levels, and removing roughly 320 billion tonnes of CO₂ this century, offering a 50 % chance of returning to the pathway. It also highlights progress such as the surge in renewable energy, slower growth in coal and oil supply than projected, and the curbing of emissions by climate policies in many countries.
COP31 opens as an unprecedented El Niño develops in the Pacific. The event is expected to make 2027 warmer than 2024, potentially setting a new record. El Niño is a natural climate cycle that compounds human‑driven global warming but does not alter its long‑term trajectory. It could, however, give delegates a preview of a hotter world, with more severe droughts, floods and wildfires across regions. A late‑October update from the University of Chicago’s climate impact lab projects 857,000 global deaths from El Niño‑related extreme heat between June 2026 and March 2027.