The 31st General Meeting of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Change Convention (COP31) will be held at the Turkey Antalya Expo Center from 9 to 20 November, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement and discussing ways to move countries’ climate goals into real policies and investments.
The COP is an annual meeting where countries parties to the UN Climate Change Convention discuss climate change responses and make joint decisions.This year’s meeting will bring together government delegations, enterprises and civil society, and South Korea will send a government delegation to the Ministry of Climate Energy and Environment as a senior representative.
Adaptation from Adaptation to Adaptation.
The main negotiating agenda is greenhouse gas reduction, climate change adaptation, global implementation review, fair transition, climate finance, losses and damage, and transparency. In the area of reduction, the Sharm el-Sheikh reduction work programme operated from 2023 will be discussed as follow-up operations and reduction technology and investment cooperation as this year ends.
In the area of adaptation, discussions will continue to concretize the definition and measurement methods of the 59 Belmont adaptation indicators adopted at COP30 last year.The second global implementation review, aimed at completion in 2028, is underway in full, and the process of gathering and evaluating the reduction, adaptation and support situation in each country begins.
Turkey leads the agenda and Australia negotiates
This year’s negotiations are based on Turkey’s chairmanship of the General Assembly and the climate action agenda, and Australia’s leadership of negotiations between the parties. Turkey has proposed clean energy transition, zero-west and climate-resilient cities as its agenda of action, and has also pledged global electrification to increase its share of global final energy consumption to 35% by 2035.
As the power grid expansion and electrification of the industry, transportation and building sectors are the main implementation areas of the promise. Energy transition and industrial structural changes are in line with electricity billing, transportation and housing environment and jobs, the transition support and adaptation policies discussed at the General Assembly are also linked to domestic climate response.
According to the UN Climate Change Agreement schedule, the meeting will take place from 9 to 20 November. During the General Meeting, countries will negotiate on how to implement reduction and adaptation targets, climate finance and transparency issues.