COP31 2026: Key Agenda, Host Country & What to Expect

What Is COP31 and Why Does It Matter?

By the time diplomats arrive at COP31 in 2026, the world will have already spent a large share of the remaining carbon budget for limiting warming to 1.5°C. The IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report estimated that, from the start of 2020, humanity had about 500 gigatonnes of CO2 left for a 50% chance of holding warming to 1.5°C. At recent global emissions rates, that budget is measured in years, not decades.

COP31 is the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It is part treaty meeting, part political summit, part pressure test for the Paris Agreement. Every COP has a formal negotiating agenda, but the real measure of success is whether countries turn agreed language into policies that cut emissions, protect people from climate impacts, and move finance at the scale promised.

COP31 will matter because it lands after a pivotal cycle. COP28 in Dubai produced the first Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement, which said the world was not on track and called for a transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems, tripling renewable energy capacity, and doubling energy efficiency improvement rates by 2030. COP30 in Belem then became the first major test of whether countries would respond with stronger 2035 national climate plans.

The gap remains large. The IPCC found that pathways compatible with 1.5°C require global greenhouse gas emissions to fall by roughly 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035, compared with 2019 levels, before reaching net zero CO2 around mid-century. UN climate analysis around the 2025 NDC cycle showed improvement, but not enough. New and updated national plans pointed to a global emissions decline closer to about 10% by 2035 under submitted pledges, far short of the IPCC benchmark.

That is the central tension heading into COP31. The Paris Agreement is working as a transparency and pressure system. It is not yet working fast enough as an emissions-reduction system.

Key Agenda Items and Negotiation Priorities at COP31

At COP31, negotiators will be working against a hard deadline: 2030 will be only four years away, and most near-term targets will either be locked in by policy or already out of reach. That makes implementation the defining word of the summit.

The first major agenda item will be the next phase of national climate plans, known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs. The 2025 NDC round was supposed to show how countries would align their 2035 targets with the Global Stocktake. Some did move. The European Union reaffirmed a 55% net emissions reduction target for 2030 and advanced a 2035 pathway. Brazil submitted a 2035 target while preparing to host COP30. Australia lifted its 2030 ambition earlier and then faced scrutiny over whether its fossil fuel export model matched its climate diplomacy.

The second priority will be adaptation. Climate impacts are no longer future scenarios. In 2024 and 2025, record heat, extreme rainfall, wildfire seasons, coral bleaching, and flood losses put adaptation at the center of climate politics. Small island states and least developed countries are expected to push COP31 for stronger delivery under the Global Goal on Adaptation, with clearer indicators, finance channels, and accountability.

The third priority is finance. COP29 set a new collective quantified goal for climate finance of at least $300 billion a year by 2035 for developing countries, alongside a broader push to scale climate finance from public and private sources toward $1.3 trillion annually. COP31 will test whether that pledge is moving from diplomatic number to actual flows. Developing countries will ask who pays, what counts, how much arrives as grants rather than loans, and whether finance reaches adaptation and loss and damage instead of clustering around easier clean-energy investments.

A fourth priority is trade and industrial policy. Carbon border measures, clean technology subsidies, critical minerals, green hydrogen standards, and methane rules are now climate issues. COP31 will have to manage friction between decarbonization and development. Countries that depend on commodity exports will argue that climate rules should not become disguised protectionism. Industrialized economies will argue that carbon leakage and high-emissions imports can weaken domestic climate policy.

The fifth priority is credibility. UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell has repeatedly warned that the direction of travel is improving but the pace is too slow. IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin analysts have often described COP outcomes as delicate packages built through trade-offs among mitigation, finance, adaptation, and equity. COP31 will be judged by whether that package creates measurable acceleration, not just balanced wording.

The Road from COP30 to COP31: Progress and Gaps

At COP30 in Belem, the Amazon was not just a backdrop; it was a reminder that climate diplomacy is now tied to land, food, forests, Indigenous rights, and the politics of development. Brazil used COP30 to push implementation, forest protection, and a more practical response to the Global Stocktake.

The progress from COP30 to COP31 can be measured in three ways.

First, more countries submitted 2035 NDCs. By the end of COP30, a significant share of global emissions was covered by new or updated national pledges. World Resources Institute analysis noted that more than 100 countries representing most global emissions had come forward. That was a sign that the Paris ratchet mechanism still has force.

Second, the quality of pledges improved in some areas. More NDCs included economy-wide targets, methane measures, renewable power deployment, adaptation planning, and references to just transition. China’s clean-energy buildout, the European Union’s regulatory framework, Brazil’s deforestation agenda, and South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership all gave negotiators real examples to discuss rather than abstract promises.

Third, implementation remained uneven. The UNFCCC’s 2025 NDC synthesis work showed that the emissions curve could bend downward, but not steeply enough. A roughly 10% global reduction by 2035, if achieved, would still leave the world far from the IPCC’s 60% benchmark for 1.5°C-compatible pathways. That gap is not a rounding error. It is the difference between a managed transition and a prolonged overshoot.

COP30 also left unresolved questions on fossil fuels. COP28’s Global Stocktake language on transitioning away from fossil fuels was historic because it named the core cause of the problem. Yet it did not create a binding phase-out schedule. COP30 kept that debate alive but did not settle it. COP31 will inherit the same conflict: whether the UN climate process can move from broad direction to specific timelines for coal, oil, and gas.

The road to COP31 is therefore a test of follow-through. Countries have agreed on the destination: net zero emissions, climate resilience, and finance aligned with low-emissions development. The problem is speed, fairness, and delivery.

Fossil Fuel Phase-Out and Energy Transition Targets

In 2023, the Global Stocktake called on countries to triple renewable energy capacity and double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030. Those targets will be only four years from deadline at COP31.

The energy transition is moving faster than many governments expected. The International Energy Agency has reported that clean-energy investment is now roughly twice the level of fossil fuel investment globally. Solar power additions have broken records. Battery costs have fallen dramatically over the past decade. Electric vehicle sales have expanded from niche markets to mass markets in China, Europe, and parts of North America.

But fossil fuel demand has not fallen fast enough. Coal remains deeply embedded in power systems across Asia. Oil demand is tied to transport, petrochemicals, aviation, and shipping. Gas is still promoted by many governments as a transition fuel, even though methane leakage can sharply weaken its climate advantage over coal.

COP31 will likely reopen the question that dominated COP28 and COP30: should countries agree to phase out fossil fuels, phase down unabated fossil fuels, or focus on emissions rather than fuels? The wording matters. “Unabated” leaves room for carbon capture and storage. A broader phase-out points toward managed decline in production and consumption.

Real-world examples show how hard this will be. Germany has accelerated renewable power but still wrestles with industrial competitiveness and grid bottlenecks. Indonesia’s coal-heavy electricity system is central to its development strategy, even as it receives international support for transition planning. The United States has expanded clean-energy manufacturing while remaining one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers. Australia has high renewable potential and major critical-minerals reserves, but it is also a leading exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas.

A credible COP31 package may need to connect fossil fuel language with practical transition tools: finance for grid upgrades, worker transition plans, methane regulation, clean industrial standards, coal retirement mechanisms, and support for countries whose public revenues depend on fossil fuel exports. Without that bridge, the debate risks becoming symbolic. With it, COP31 could turn the Global Stocktake into an investment and policy agenda.

Climate Finance: Who Pays and How Much?

The climate finance fight at COP31 will begin with a number: $300 billion a year by 2035. That is the new collective finance goal agreed for developing countries, replacing the earlier $100 billion annual target that wealthy countries struggled to meet on time.

For developing countries, $300 billion is not viewed as the true cost of climate action. It is viewed as a floor. Independent assessments, including work by the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, have placed developing-country climate investment needs in the trillions of dollars annually by the 2030s when energy, adaptation, resilience, and loss and damage are counted together.

The finance debate has several layers.

The first is public finance. Vulnerable countries want more grants and highly concessional finance, especially for adaptation and loss and damage. A solar farm may attract private capital if revenue is predictable. A seawall, drought-resilient farming program, or cyclone shelter usually cannot. That makes public finance essential.

The second is debt. Many climate-vulnerable countries are also heavily indebted. If climate finance arrives mainly as loans, it can deepen fiscal stress. Barbados, through the Bridgetown Initiative, has pushed reforms to the international financial system, including cheaper lending, disaster clauses, and greater use of multilateral development banks to mobilize capital.

The third is accountability. What counts as climate finance remains contested. Recipient countries often argue that reported totals overstate new and additional support, include commercial loans, or repackage existing development aid. COP31 will face pressure for clearer tracking.

The fourth is private capital. Wealthy governments increasingly argue that public money should mobilize larger private flows. That can work for renewable power, storage, transmission, clean transport, and industrial decarbonization. It works less well for adaptation in low-income countries unless public institutions reduce risk.

Case studies matter here. South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership showed the promise and difficulty of large transition finance packages: billions were pledged, but questions followed about loans, grants, grid readiness, coal communities, and implementation pace. Vietnam and Indonesia faced similar issues. These examples will shape COP31 discussions because they show that headline pledges are only the beginning.

Finance is the trust engine of the UN climate process. If developing countries see finance moving, they are more likely to strengthen NDCs, accept tougher transparency, and engage on fossil fuel transition language. If finance stalls, ambition stalls with it.

Role of Australia as COP31 Host

Australia’s role at COP31 is politically unusual: Türkiye is set to host the formal COP31 summit, while Australia is expected to hold a central presidency and partnership role with Pacific countries, including pre-COP events in the Pacific. That arrangement reflects a diplomatic compromise after both Australia and Türkiye sought the 2026 summit.

For Australia, COP31 is a credibility test. The country has world-class renewable resources, major reserves of lithium and critical minerals, strong climate science institutions, and deep relationships across the Pacific. It also remains a major exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas. Those two realities will sit side by side throughout the summit year.

The Pacific dimension gives Australia’s role particular weight. Pacific island countries have been among the strongest advocates for 1.5°C because higher warming threatens homes, freshwater supplies, reefs, fisheries, and in some cases the territorial future of low-lying states. Tuvalu, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Fiji, Vanuatu, and other Pacific nations have long argued that climate ambition is not a diplomatic preference but a survival condition.

A Pacific-centered COP31 process could elevate issues that often receive less attention than mitigation targets: planned relocation, ocean warming, legal rights under sea-level rise, climate mobility, adaptation finance, and loss and damage. Vanuatu’s leadership in the campaign for an International Court of Justice advisory opinion on climate obligations is one example of how Pacific diplomacy has reshaped global debate.

Australia will also be judged on domestic policy. Its renewable electricity buildout, emissions targets, safeguard mechanism for industrial emitters, methane policy, land-sector rules, and fossil fuel project approvals will all be scrutinized. Climate leadership in the COP system is never only about chairing meetings. It is about whether national policy supports the message delivered at the podium.

If Australia uses its role well, COP31 could become a bridge between developed and developing countries: a summit that connects Pacific vulnerability, Asian energy transition, finance reform, and practical decarbonization. If it fails, critics will frame it as another case of climate diplomacy outrunning domestic and export policy.

What Scientists and Experts Expect from COP31

The scientific baseline for COP31 is stark: every fraction of a degree matters. The IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report found that risks to ecosystems, food systems, water security, health, infrastructure, and livelihoods rise with each increment of warming. At 1.5°C, impacts are severe. At 2°C, many become substantially worse.

Scientists will watch COP31 for signs that governments are treating overshoot as a risk to be minimized, not a planning assumption. Many modeled pathways now include temporary overshoot of 1.5°C followed by later carbon dioxide removal. That is not a free pass. Overshoot raises the risk of irreversible losses, including coral reef collapse, ice-sheet instability, and ecosystem damage. Carbon removal can help balance residual emissions, but it cannot substitute for rapid fossil fuel cuts this decade.

Climate policy experts will focus on implementation architecture. IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin analysts have long emphasized that COP decisions are built through consensus, which means the final text often reflects both ambition and constraint. The key question for COP31 is whether negotiators can create mechanisms that survive weak wording: reporting requirements, sectoral targets, finance road maps, ministerial checkpoints, and pressure on countries whose NDCs are not aligned with Paris goals.

UNFCCC leadership has also pushed this message. Simon Stiell has said the world needs to “pick up the pace” even as the emissions curve begins to bend. That framing is likely to define COP31: progress is real, but delay is costly.

Experts will expect movement in at least five areas.

One is stronger 2035 targets from major emitters. China, the United States, the European Union, India, Russia, Japan, Brazil, Indonesia, and Australia together shape the global emissions pathway. Without deeper action from large economies, smaller countries cannot close the gap.

Another is methane. Methane has far higher near-term warming power than CO2, and cutting methane from fossil fuel operations, agriculture, and waste can slow warming quickly. The Global Methane Pledge created momentum, but implementation remains uneven.

A third is adaptation metrics. Countries need clearer ways to measure whether people are actually becoming safer: fewer heat deaths, stronger flood protection, more resilient crops, wider insurance access, and better early warning systems.

A fourth is finance quality. Experts will look beyond totals to the share of grants, concessional loans, adaptation funding, and direct access for local institutions.

A fifth is policy credibility. Targets without coal retirement plans, grid investment, permitting reform, industrial standards, and land-use enforcement will not convince markets or citizens.

How COP31 Could Shape Global Climate Action Beyond 2030

By 2030, the world will know whether the Paris Agreement’s first major implementation decade bent the emissions curve fast enough. COP31 will help determine what happens next.

If COP31 succeeds, it will do three things.

First, it will convert the Global Stocktake into a stronger implementation cycle. That means countries would leave with clearer expectations for 2035 targets, stronger sector plans, and a process for revisiting weak NDCs before the next formal cycle. The Paris Agreement depends on repetition: pledge, review, strengthen, implement. COP31 can make that rhythm harder to evade.

Second, it will connect climate ambition to economic strategy. The next phase of climate policy is not only about emissions caps. It is about power grids, minerals, ports, public transport, steel, cement, fertilizers, forests, insurance, food systems, and city planning. COP31 could help normalize the idea that climate plans are national development plans.

Third, it will shape trust beyond 2030. Developing countries are being asked to grow differently from the fossil-fueled path taken by rich countries. That request requires finance, technology access, and political fairness. If COP31 advances those conditions, it can strengthen cooperation. If not, climate diplomacy may become more fragmented, with countries turning to trade blocs, carbon clubs, litigation, and unilateral policy.

The stakes are practical. A 1.5°C-aligned world requires emissions to fall almost by half this decade and continue steeply downward through 2035. Current pledges do not yet deliver that. The gap is visible in UNFCCC synthesis reports, UNEP emissions gap assessments, and the IPCC’s carbon budget.

COP31 will not solve climate change in one summit. No COP can. But it can decide whether the world treats the late 2020s as the moment for acceleration or as another period of managed delay. For readers following international climate policy, that is why COP31 deserves close attention: it sits at the point where diplomatic language must become infrastructure, investment, regulation, and real-world emissions cuts.