COP31 in Antalya must turn climate pledges into action: UNEP official

The United Nations Environment Programme's climate chief said Monday that the upcoming COP31 summit in Antalya offers a critical opportunity to translate years of climate pledges into concrete action by cutting emissions and phasing out fossil fuels, warning that current national commitments still leave the world facing catastrophic warming of 2.6 degrees Celsius this century.

Fossil fuel phase-out and methane reduction

Martin Krause, director of UNEP's Climate Change Division, told Anadolu that the Nov. 9-20 conference must prioritize the gradual elimination of coal — followed by oil and natural gas — across energy, transport and industrial sectors while implementing clear national plans to manage the transition. "COP31 is a COP that needs to deliver on the pledges, the commitments and the promises that have been made," he said, stressing that nearly 11 years after the Paris Agreement's adoption, diplomatic efforts have yet to produce a resolution aligned with the 1.5C target. Krause also identified methane reduction as an area offering immediate progress potential, describing it as an "emergency brake for runaway climate change" and noting that "methane emissions contribute substantially to global warming, and we have a lot of solutions to curb and reduce them" across fossil fuel, waste and agricultural sectors.

Science and adaptation priorities

He outlined climate science guidance as UNEP's foremost priority for the negotiations, urging political leaders and private sector representatives to heed researchers' warnings — particularly the October 2026 Emissions Gap Report findings — amid growing misinformation about climate change. "We should not, and we cannot, ignore at COP31 the messages that are coming from climate scientists. And this is not a given anymore, because there is a lot of misinformation about climate change out there in the world," he said, arguing that ensuring scientific evidence guides negotiations would mark a major achievement. He added that accelerating emissions reductions represents an equally critical objective, warning that greenhouse gas emissions have yet to peak, while stronger resilience measures and increased adaptation financing remain essential as communities confront extreme heat, floods and melting glaciers.

International cooperation and financing

Krause expressed hope that COP31 would signal stronger support for adaptation financing to protect vulnerable communities, noting that existing mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility remain insufficient to meet the required scale of investment despite Türkiye's presidency placing waste management at the top of its agenda. He pointed to national budgets and private sector investment in clean solutions as necessary supplements to current funding streams, explaining that ministries could fund specific measures through regular domestic allocations while highlighting steps Ankara has taken over the past decade — including adopting its Climate Law and establishing net-zero targets. "Although we are living in a deeply divided world at the moment, we have to show that international cooperation and multilateralism can deliver a credible response to the climate crisis," he said, stressing that the summit must demonstrate that divided nations can still unite on environmental action even as questions persist over contributions to the Loss and Damage Fund.