ANTALYA, Turkey — The United Nations climate summit, COP31, opened in the Turkish Mediterranean city of Antalya on Monday. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries gathered for two weeks of talks, and the United States sent no negotiating team. Turkey's Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change Minister, Murat Kurum, formally took over the presidency from Brazil, which hosted COP30 in Belém last November.
The summit is run under an unusual power-sharing arrangement agreed in 2025, after Turkey and Australia both bid to host. Ankara holds the presidency and the venue. Australia's Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, serves as president of negotiations, and a pre-summit meeting was held in the Pacific to reflect the concerns of low-lying island states.
The absence of a US delegation reflects President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which took effect in January 2026. His administration has also announced it will leave the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the treaty that underpins the annual talks. Several Democratic state governors and city mayors were expected to attend in an unofficial capacity, as they did in Belém.
The most contentious item on the agenda is a roadmap for moving away from fossil fuels. That language was dropped from the final Belém text after resistance from oil-producing states, despite support from more than 80 countries.
Delegates must also show progress on the Belém pledge to triple adaptation finance for developing countries by 2035. A synthesis report from the UNFCCC secretariat has found that updated national climate plans still put the world on course to overshoot the Paris Agreement's 1.5C goal.
Simon Stiell, the UNFCCC's executive secretary, told delegates at the opening plenary that countries needed to turn existing pledges into delivery. Pacific island governments, led by Tuvalu and Vanuatu, have said they will measure the summit's success by whether it produces a binding timetable on fossil fuels. The talks are scheduled to close on 20 November.