What to expect as world leaders gather for COP31

World leaders are gathering in Antalya, Turkey, for COP31 after a year of deadly climate disasters and a U.N. report warning that the world will inevitably exceed 1.5°C of warming. The threshold has long guided climate ambition because crossing it could trigger dangerous, potentially irreversible changes, but few expect this summit to deliver a major breakthrough.

COP31, co-hosted by Turkey and Australia, is being framed as an “implementation” summit focused on putting existing Paris Agreement commitments into practice. Delegates are due to discuss tracking climate progress, measuring adaptation, extending a programme to speed emissions cuts and creating a just transition mechanism to support workers and countries moving away from fossil fuels. Wealthy countries are also likely to face renewed scrutiny over climate funding they pledged but have not delivered; the article cites Nepal’s catastrophic flooding, which killed more than 1,500 people and caused nearly $5 billion in damage.