The 31st United Nations climate change conference, COP31, opens on Monday 9 November in Antalya, Türkiye, and runs until 20 November. Türkiye hosts the conference and holds the presidency, while Australia chairs the negotiations under a compromise reached last year. A World Leaders Summit is scheduled for 11 and 12 November.
For African delegations, the agenda is less about new headline targets than about turning existing commitments into money and action.
Adaptation finance is the main test
The African Group of Negotiators has called for the delivery of existing climate commitments and for predictable, grant-based finance for adaptation, so that countries can move their National Adaptation Plans from policy documents to investment. The group’s chair has argued that success in Antalya should be judged by how effectively Africa shapes the outcome, not how often it speaks.
The gap is large. Climate Policy Initiative estimates that Africa needs about $70 billion a year for adaptation, against roughly $14.8 billion that flowed in 2023.
Turning the finance goal into flows
At COP29 in Baku, countries adopted a new collective goal of at least $300 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2035, within a broader ambition of $1.3 trillion a year from all sources. Antalya is an early test of whether that goal begins to translate into scheduled flows, including calls to at least triple adaptation finance.
A common African position
Kenya’s President William Ruto, as coordinator of the Committee of African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change, convened the committee ahead of the conference. Its priorities are significantly enhanced and accessible adaptation finance, effective support for loss and damage, access to technology and capacity building, and just transition arrangements. Renewable energy and clean cooking also feature in the continent’s agenda.
What to watch in Antalya
- Whether the Global Goal on Adaptation gets indicators and finance attached to it.
- Progress on capitalising and disbursing the fund for responding to loss and damage.
- Any roadmap from the $300 billion goal to specific contributions.
- Rules and safeguards for international carbon markets under Article 6.
- Discussions on just transition, national climate plans and forests.
The road continues after Antalya. COP32 will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2027, giving Africa a chance to host the talks and to measure what COP31 delivered.
Sources: Ghana News Agency: African negotiators seek delivery of climate commitments at COP31 · Zawya: Africa’s common position ahead of COP31 · Daily Guide Network: An unlikely partnership is running COP31 · AFD: The AFD Group at COP31
