Welcome back to Temperature Check, Portland’s annual COP newsletter.
COP31 opens in Antalya on Monday with a familiar promise: implementation. But with adaptation finance falling far short of developing countries’ needs, the real test is whether governments can turn existing commitments into money that countries can actually access.
The politics have shifted since Belém. The US formally left the Paris Agreement in January, trade disputes are increasingly shaping climate diplomacy, and the countries most exposed to climate impacts are demanding more than promises. In this context, Africa is pushing finance to the centre of negotiations, while Türkiye is betting on turning national climate plans into investable projects.
We’ll be watching whether governments leave Antalya with more realistic ways to deliver on what they’ve already committed to.
The $1.3 trillion question
In 2024, developing countries received between $28.2 billion and $31.7 billion in international public finance to adapt to climate change, according to the UN Environment Programme’s Adaptation Gap Report 2026. By 2035, they will need around $305 billion a year.
At COP29, governments agreed that developed countries should mobilise at least $300 billion a year for developing countries by 2035. A $1.3 trillion a year target from all public and private sources became the centrepiece of the Baku-to-Belém Roadmap. COP30 then called for adaptation finance to at least triple over the same period. Yet, UNEP calculates that, once inflation is factored in, this would cover only 20–29% of what is needed.
Despite these targets, questions remain about who pays, through which instruments, and on what terms. For many developing economies, financing climate action still means borrowing at high interest rates, which is no solution for countries already struggling to service their debt.
In a letter to UN climate chief Simon Stiell, the African Group of Negotiators has therefore called for three new items on the formal agenda: tripling adaptation finance, trade and climate change, and the Green Climate Fund’s financing arrangements. Climate Home News reports that developed countries are likely to resist.
A COP with two captains
COP31 will be hosted by Türkiye, with Environment Minister Murat Kurum taking on the role of COP President. Under a unique arrangement, however, the formal negotiations will be run by Australia’s Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen – a compromise the two countries reached at COP30.
The split could work in Antalya’s favour. Türkiye has built its presidency around electrification, industrial transition and delivery. Australia has put the Pacific at the centre: the Pre-COP in Fiji and the leaders’ event in Tuvalu in early October focused on keeping 1.5°C within reach, access to finance and the ocean. For low-lying island states, these talks also concern sovereignty, maritime boundaries, and whether some communities can stay where they are.
Bowen’s job is to turn those priorities into text that countries with very different economic interests can sign. He will do so without an official US negotiating delegation after Washington withdrew from the Paris Agreement in January. Yet a 19-member congressional delegation is expected in Antalya, showing that US climate engagement extends beyond the White House.
Brazil hasn’t left the stage either. On 3 November, its COP30 Presidency published two roadmaps, one on transitioning away from fossil fuels and one on halting deforestation by 2030, after neither could win consensus in Belém. Brazilian officials are clear that the roadmaps are not for negotiation in Antalya. Whether other governments pick them up anyway will show how much influence a former presidency can keep.
When climate meets trade
Trade has moved from the margins to the main stage. Li Gao, China’s vice-minister of ecology and environment, has called for COP31 to tackle the “new problem” of unilateralism and protectionism, a pointed reference to US and EU restrictions on Chinese clean technology. China’s commercial interests are clear, as the producer of most of the world’s solar panels and batteries. So is the anxiety in Europe and the US about jobs, industrial capacity and dependence. India’s Environment Minister, Bhupender Yadav is pressing for predictable, largely public finance that doesn’t add to debt, technology transfer as an obligation of developed countries, and implementation that respects national pathways.
The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, in force since January, shows why. Designed to limit carbon-intensive imports, it creates new costs and compliance burdens to those supplying the European market. Emerging economies want to know who captures the transition’s economic gains. Antalya won’t settle that debate, but it will shape the conditions under which every other commitment gets delivered.
From implementation to reality
The Turkish Presidency has organised its voluntary Action Agenda around ten priorities, from clean energy and resilient cities to green industrialisation, food security and health systems. The most practical-looking piece is the Climate Implementation Bridge, or BRIDGE, delivered with UNDP to turn national climate plans into finance-ready projects. Ethiopia, Fiji, Indonesia, Pakistan and Uzbekistan are the first pilot countries.
It targets a real bottleneck. In many developing economies, weak project preparation and thin institutional capacity hold up investment as much as a pledge shortage does. But BRIDGE is a presidency initiative, not a government-to-government agreement, and its value will be measured in deals closed rather than pipelines drawn. Ethiopia, a pilot country and host of COP32 next year, offers an obvious checkpoint.
COP31 also follows this year’s biodiversity and land summits, with Türkiye seeking closer cooperation between the three conventions. The links are increasingly obvious, particularly around food security, resilience and health. WHO estimates that up to 3.6 billion people live in contexts highly vulnerable to climate change. But coordinating international commitments is one thing; financing their implementation across traditionally separate institutions is another.
Inside the negotiating rooms, work continues on finance, adaptation, mitigation and the just transition. COP31 also opens the second Global Stocktake, the formal review of collective progress under the Paris Agreement, which concludes in 2028. The starting point is not encouraging. The UNFCCC’s latest synthesis of national climate plans assesses submissions from 154 Parties covering approximately 71% of global emissions in 2019. It projects that implementing the submitted plans would leave global emissions about 6% below 2019 levels by 2035. Even with all conditional elements included, the estimate rises to just 9% – far short of what 1.5°C requires.
What we’ll be following
First, the agenda fight. How governments handle the African Group’s requests when the conference opens will show early on whether they are prepared to discuss the terms of finance, not just the totals.
Second, fossil fuels. Brazil’s roadmap provides a basis for discussion, but it sits outside the formal consensus. Political support for a transition is one thing; an agreed pathway that accommodates very different national circumstances is much harder to reach.
Third, whether BRIDGE and the Presidency’s other initiatives come with funding and named owners. The Presidency says it hopes to bring a second group of countries into BRIDGE in Antalya. That would be a good start, but funded projects would be the real test.
After another year of promises, our measure for Antalya is a practical one: do countries leave with more realistic ways to pay for what they’ve already committed to?
What to read, listen and watch ahead of COP31
🎙️Talk & Action Podcast: We Have the Climate Solutions. What’s Holding Us Back?
📰 Devex – The Road to COP31: COP31 in Antalya: Here are 10 key issues to watch
🎙️Bloomberg Zero: How Australia Gives Its Citizens Free Electricity
📰 Carbon Brief: Who wants what at the COP31 climate change summit?
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