One week to COP31: Antalya’s climate record and finance tensions.

Weather warnings were in place in the city hosting COP31. The containers housing workers did not withstand the tornado.

On the night of 26 October, a tornado struck a construction site in the Fevzi Çakmak neighbourhood of Kepez, sweeping away two container units used as workers’ accommodation. Four workers died and one person was injured. Three of those killed were Syrian nationals and one was Turkish. The site owner and the construction manager were remanded in custody on 28 October; two others were released under judicial supervision. The investigation is continuing.

COP31Radar’s Antalya research briefing, published on 29 October, places the disaster alongside the city’s longer-term climate record. An Antalya-area temperature series derived from ERA5-Land reanalysis gives an average of 14.26°C for 2006–2015 and 15.08°C for 2016–2025 — a rise of 0.82°C between the two decades. In the same series, 2024 was the warmest year from 1950 to 2025, at 16.09°C. These figures come from ERA5-Land reanalysis rather than direct measurements at a weather station in central Antalya.

Antalya’s Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Plan, published by AFAD, records 15 tornadoes in 2005–2010, 54 in 2010–2015 and 76 in 2015–2020. Changes in reporting systems and observation coverage mean the increase cannot simply be attributed to climate change. The research also examines other extreme weather events: approximately 491 mm of rain fell in a day at Kemer/Ovacık on 17 December 2018, setting a Turkish record; on 13 February 2024, Kepez recorded 297.7 mm, the country’s highest daily rainfall reported that year.

The briefing documents 28 deaths across ten selected incidents. This is not a comprehensive toll of disaster deaths in Antalya. Nor is there an event-attribution study quantifying the role of human-caused climate change in the Kepez tornado.

The more immediate question is: What was done to protect workers in temporary accommodation after the weather warnings? The effectiveness of adaptation policies should be visible at worksites, in places where people live, and in the action taken when early warnings arrive.

COP31’s Resilient Cities and Built Environment Day on 12 November will carry particular significance in the host city after this disaster.

Sources: COP31Radar, Antalya climate data briefing, 29 October 2026 (original research PDF); Anadolu Agency, 27 October; Anadolu Agency, two suspects remanded, 28 October.

Even adoption of the agenda could prove contentious in Antalya. Divisions persist over finance, trade and just transition.

1. Adaptation finance. At COP30, countries agreed to at least triple adaptation finance for developing countries by 2035. But no baseline year or specific monetary value was agreed. The African Group is therefore seeking a separate negotiating item. The EU, United Kingdom and Japan opposed placing finance within the Global Goal on Adaptation discussions in June. Where this issue is negotiated in Antalya could matter politically.

2. Climate measures and trade. Trade measures such as the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism raise cost and competitiveness concerns in developing countries. The African Group wants formal talks on the climate–trade relationship; China has also criticised climate-related trade restrictions. The debate could become a dispute over how the economic costs of emissions cuts are distributed between countries.

3. The Global Goal on Adaptation’s 59 indicators. Adopted at COP30, the Belém indicators provide a new framework for tracking adaptation efforts. A UNFCCC technical assessment dated 30 September shows that many require further methodological development and better data. Antalya will consider their implementation, data capacity and links to finance. Another question is how well national averages capture the differing risks faced by women, children, people with disabilities and other communities.

4. The Belém–Antalya Just Transition Mechanism. COP30 agreed to develop the mechanism, but its governance, institutional relationships and funding arrangements remain unsettled. Proposals released by Climate Action Network on 22 October stress the participation of workers and communities in decisions and the need for the mechanism to function in practice. Decisions on its structure and resources will need to be followed together.

5. Transitioning away from fossil fuels. Pacific organisations are asking for a clear timetable. Türkiye’s energy-efficiency and electrification initiatives could bring progress in particular sectors, but they cannot substitute for a broader political agreement among Parties on moving away from coal, oil and gas. The treatment of this issue in COP31’s outcome text will matter.

Announcements of new targets alone will not determine the outcome. The scope of decisions, their timetable, available resources and the allocation of responsibility will be just as important.

Sources: Climate Home News, African Group agenda request; UNFCCC, technical assessment of the 59 indicators; Climate Action Network, Belém–Antalya mechanism proposal.

Türkiye is hosting COP31. The impact of its own 2035 target on actual emissions therefore deserves close examination.

In its second nationally determined contribution (NDC), submitted in November 2025, Türkiye pledged to limit greenhouse-gas emissions to 643 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2035. The government describes this as 466 million tonnes below a business-as-usual scenario in which emissions would reach 1.109 billion tonnes. Both figures include land use and forestry.

Because the government did not provide a separate 2035 land-use and forestry projection, Climate Action Tracker (CAT) assumes that the sector’s net sink in 2035 remains at its projected 2030 level. On that basis, CAT estimates the target at 694 million tonnes excluding land use and forestry, or 31% above 2018 emissions in its comparison. The official target is 643 million tonnes; 694 million tonnes is CAT’s adjusted estimate.

In its June 2026 assessment, CAT finds that Türkiye’s target is not aligned with 1.5°C. It considers the government’s business-as-usual scenario unrealistic and argues that 2035 emissions could fall below the target even if existing policies simply continue. CAT argues that the target does not require deeper cuts. CAT rates it “critically insufficient”.

Türkiye has adopted climate legislation and is preparing an emissions trading system. But the target contains no coal phase-out timetable or new binding sectoral emissions-reduction targets. As the new Antalya Compact focuses on energy efficiency in buildings, the debate over Türkiye’s national target continues.

During COP31, we will watch for any move to strengthen Türkiye’s 2035 target or make substantive changes to its coal and natural-gas policies.

Sources: Türkiye’s 2025 NDC; Climate Action Tracker, June 2026 assessment; COP31 Presidency, Antalya Compact.

The Peoples’ Climate Summit brings questions of labour, energy, food and democracy into a parallel agenda alongside the UN climate negotiations.

The Antalya Summit will begin with a march and rally on 14 November. The Labour Assembly on 12–14 November will bring together unions from Türkiye and abroad. From 15 to 18 November, plenary sessions, panels, workshops and forums will take place at the Mimar Sinan Congress Centre. Organisers are planning around 150 events involving more than 130 organising bodies, with speakers from 32 countries. Almost 300 international and more than 200 local organisations are also listed as supporters.

The four main thematic sessions focus on the Rights of Nature on 15 November; Fossil Fuel Phase-out and Energy Democracy on 16 November; Democracy, Anti-militarism and Peace on 17 November; and Food Sovereignty and Agroecology on 18 November. The Summit also plans discussions on climate debt, carbon markets, war, gender inequality and waste trade.

These debates have direct points of contact with COP31. While the formal negotiations consider how a just-transition mechanism should work, the Summit will discuss preventing the costs of the energy transition from falling on workers, public energy policies and workers’ participation in decisions. Discussions on historical responsibility and climate debt speak to the COP finance agenda. Sessions on ecological destruction and food sovereignty will examine the impacts of climate policy on land, production and livelihoods.

We will follow the positions emerging from the Summit and whether any of its demands reach the COP31 negotiating agenda.

Sources: Official Peoples’ Climate Summit programme; Organisers’ statement, 21 October.

Global climate finance averaged $1.9 trillion a year in 2023–2024, while countries most exposed to climate harm continued to face major barriers to funding.

According to a UNFCCC assessment published on 27 October, global public and private climate finance averaged $1.9 trillion annually in 2023–2024, 32% higher than in the previous comparison period. This includes domestic investment, private-sector finance and different financial instruments. It is far broader than the grants provided by one country to another.

In their Antalya Declaration, Caribbean countries demand predictable, affordable finance for adaptation. Small island states face the prospect of taking on more debt to recover from disasters. The distinction between grants, concessional loans and commercial investment is therefore politically consequential.

Flooding in Nepal in August illustrates the scale of the gap. A preliminary damage and needs assessment estimated around $4.8 billion in recovery and reconstruction needs. The Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage provisionally set aside $21.6 million for Nepal and allowed the country to submit a request outside the normal application cycle. Nepal’s government described the expected grant as $20 million; the provisional allocation is not yet final approval or disbursement.

The African Group’s request to put adaptation finance on the COP31 agenda raises a similar issue. The baseline year, monetary value and sources of funding for the goal of “tripling by 2035” remain unsettled. A finance pledge still needs to become an approved project — and an approved project must lead to money reaching the intended recipients.

New finance pledges may be announced at COP31. We will examine who can access the money, whether it comes as grants or loans, and when it becomes available.

Sources: UNFCCC finance assessment, 27 October; CARICOM Antalya Declaration; Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage; Nepal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.