World leaders, delegates and climate activists will open negotiations Monday in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya, Turkey, at the United Nations' 31st climate conference, COP31, after a year of rising temperatures and deadly weather disasters.1,3,4
The talks, scheduled for Nov. 9-20, will press delegates to turn past pledges into action and to develop new ones. Scientists say the goal set in the 2015 Paris Agreement of limiting average warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit since the early 1800s, will likely be exceeded within the next few years, and global efforts can now only work toward minimizing the overshoot.1,3
The past year brought August, described as the world's hottest month on record, a catastrophic avalanche collapse in Nepal, devastating floods in Nepal that left residents salvaging belongings in Nuwakot district, deadly heat waves in Europe and beyond, and a potentially record-setting El Nino that pushed ocean temperatures to a record high. In Europe, severe drought, extreme heat, wildfires and record-low water levels in main waterways added to the pressure on delegates to move beyond pledges to concrete action.1,3,4
The summit also meets against higher energy costs and affordability pressures. The war in Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, pushing up global prices of gasoline and oil and products made with them such as fertilizers and pesticides, while the ongoing wars in Iran and Ukraine have driven up oil and gas prices around the world. In the United States, soaring costs including at the gas pump were the winning issue for Democrats in last week's midterm elections, with little to no focus on climate policy, and Europe has walked back some of its own climate goals over the past year.1,3
The United States arrives without a federal commitment at the table. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the U.N. Paris Agreement, which aims to limit compliant countries' greenhouse gas emissions, for the second time on Jan. 20, 2025, and moved to withdraw the U.S. from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the treaty behind the annual COP meeting, on Jan. 7. America remains the only signatory nation to exit the Paris Agreement. Over the past two years, the administration has deregulated the oil and gas industry, canceled renewable energy projects and revoked the "endangerment finding," which allowed the government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.2,3
U.N. analyses link that shift to higher forecasts. The U.N.'s 2026 warming estimate increased by 0.3 degrees over last year's findings, which the report partially attributes to the U.S. abandoning its climate promises. An October U.N. Emissions Gap Report said that even with full implementation of all current nationally determined contributions, the world remains on track to warm 2.6 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. The U.N.'s 2026 report attributed about half of a roughly 0.2-0.3-degree Celsius increase in its warming forecasts to the U.S. abandonment of its pledge, while the 2025 report said the U.S. withdrawal from Paris would cancel another 0.1 degree Celsius of progress on projected warming this century.2,3
Expectations for a broad compromise are low. International appetite for grand compromises is at its weakest point since 2015, when the French foreign minister pounded his green gavel to mark the Paris Agreement and the Eiffel Tower was lit green. Frustration with a process that requires unanimous agreement peaked at last year's conference in Brazil and led some countries to form alternative, outside negotiating groups, and 'climate fatigue' – emotional exhaustion from constant and dire warnings – has swept the world. Turkey is the official host of the 12 days of talks and Australia will lead the negotiations, with attention on smaller blocs of countries and on finding a path away from coal, oil and gas.3,4
Turkish Environment Minister Murat Kurum said, "This is the first COP where it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the world will overshoot the 1.5-degree target," adding, "We will not look away, and we will not lower our ambition." In Turkey's marketing for the meeting, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his wife Emine appear, with the first lady calling climate change "one of the most visible manifestations of the burden human activity has placed on our planet." The disruption from high fuel prices has also pushed governments to rethink short- and long-term energy policies, including increased investment in wind and solar.1,4
Cara Horowitz, executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law, who will attend her 10th COP, said, "It's not a coincidence that at the moment climate harms are affecting communities in really real ways, and affecting governments' budgets in really real ways, it becomes harder to make progress on climate mitigation." She added, "Things actually are harder to accomplish internationally when the U.S. is not only not at the table, but they are also trying to deconstruct the table that everyone is gathered around," and said, "If the world's largest historic emitter is simply not contributing, other countries might not feel the need to contribute. They might feel like chumps." Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, said advocates face the task of explaining that limiting every tenth of a degree still matters, adding, "Some parts of the [climate] movement might start losing hope, and say 'Well now we can't do anything.'"3
Six energy and policy groups — the American Energy Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, Heartland Impact, The Heartland Institute, and Truth in Energy and Climate — warned in a letter shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation that Amazon, Apple and Google may hurt U.S. interests and break federal law by making false and misleading climate statements at COP31. The letter states, "Not only are these companies misleading the public and potentially violating the law by giving the public and investors the impression that they are doing something about supposed 'climate change,' but they are also undercutting U.S. foreign policy and national security by participating in COP31." The groups, noting the companies profit from federal business and trade on public markets under Securities and Exchange Commission oversight, asked the president to inform U.S. companies of a duty to be honest and not harm national security.2
Steve Milloy, a senior fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute who served on Trump's Environmental Protection Agency transition team after the 2016 election, said, "We applaud President Trump for pulling the US out of the UN climate hoax [sic]. But not all Americans have gotten the message," and said, "We are concerned that technology companies like Amazon, Apple and Google—companies that are government contractors with national security obligations—are nevertheless participating in COP31." He added, "The President should bar federal contractors with national security obligations from participating in a process that only works to the benefit of Communist China." Amazon, Apple and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and their attendance at COP31 could not be confirmed at the time of writing.2
A signatory tied the argument to energy demand for artificial intelligence. Cameron Sholty, executive director of Heartland Impact, said demand to power AI has pushed Big Tech toward natural gas and nuclear and warned new climate pledges could harm those projects. He said, "Executives should also choose their proclamations carefully," adding, "A COP31 podium provides no exemption from American law." Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, said the tech companies produce only a sliver of America's emissions and said, "When they tell investors and the public their climate pledges are making a difference, they are selling a story the numbers fail to support."2
Officials face pressure to pair any new pledges with implementation of earlier promises, to limit additional warming even after the 1.5-degree threshold is passed, and to do so by consensus among nearly every country over the next 12 days.1,3,4
