Paris (France) (AFP) – The world has a meeting from Monday in Turkey to respond to an ever more devastating climate crisis, but the task promises to be difficult as there are so many divisions, on geopolitics, finance or the future of fossil fuels.

Published on: 06/11/2026 - 15:28

The Turkish host hopes for more than 100,000 people in the seaside city of Antalya, from November 9 to 20, for the major annual climate meeting under the auspices of the UN.

This while the planet is increasingly suffering the effects of human-caused warming, as illustrated by the succession of heatwaves in Europe or the deadly flood in Nepal. Added to this is the natural El Niño phenomenon which accentuates droughts or floods in many regions of the globe, and could reach record intensity this year.

And most scientists, like the UN, now admit that the threshold of 1.5°C of warming, the most ambitious limit of the Paris agreement, will be crossed, at least temporarily.

“Exceeding 1.5°C brings us into a zone where extreme events and their impacts, attributable to human-caused warming, become more frequent,” warns Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Climate Research Institute (PIK). “The window is still open to reverse the trend”, however, underlines the scientist.

“Not the COP that changes the world”

But will countries come together to meet the challenge as the world is divided by conflicts, from Ukraine to the Middle East?

“We are approaching this COP in a fairly turbulent period,” notes Alden Meyer, of the E3G think tank.

The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is driving fuel prices to new heights. Obtaining oil and gas is once again becoming a strategic priority for many countries, but alternatives, such as renewable electricity, are also trying to benefit from it.

The official negotiating agenda, however, remains - for the moment - relatively technical, with no major decision expected, unlike some of the previous editions.

“It will not be the COP that changes the world,” admits Paul Watkinson, former chief negotiator for France. “It is an intermediate COP in many aspects but it is an important conference” which must mark “progress”, according to him.

“The geopolitical context is currently very difficult” and we should not expect a “revolution” at COP31, the European Commission also ruled on Friday.

In the absence of consensus in the official negotiations on new binding targets, the Turkish host hopes above all to extract voluntary objectives from the countries.

These commitments, grouped in particular in an "action agenda", are distinct from the objectives fiercely negotiated each year during the COPs, which must bring together the consensus of nearly 200 countries.

“COP31 will work to transform past COP commitments into real results,” promises conference president Murat Kurum.

Turkey has established around ten priority themes, such as waste management or oceans, but above all the electrification of uses, which could be a key subject of the COP.

“Moment of uncertainty”

But this question of electricity promises to spark debate: will it end up joining the agenda of official negotiations? Will we really be talking about "clean" electricity (not produced from oil, gas or coal), as the European Union wishes?

COP30 in Brazil failed last year to adopt a sentence on fossil fuels in the face of opposition from major producing and consuming countries.

The Brazilian presidency of the conference, however, launched the idea of ​​a voluntary "road map" for a gradual exit from coal, oil and gas - a toolbox which has just been published before Antalya.

Like every year, the financial question should also inevitably come back on the table, with developing countries demanding ways to grow without polluting. Rich countries have an “obligation” to provide financing, India recalled.

The group of African negotiators has already called for the issue of financing adaptation to be added to the official agenda.

Barring any drama, the United States will once again be absent from the negotiations, the Trump administration having withdrawn from discussions on climate. But the historic victory of his democratic opponents in the mid-term elections will be dissected in Antalya.

“The global climate process is going through a moment of uncertainty, with countries looking to see if the United States could re-engage. The midterm elections may have shed some light, but the next presidential election will only take place in two years,” Li Shuo, an expert at the Asia Society in Washington, told AFP.

© 2026 AFP

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