Leaders representing less than one-fifth of CO2 pollution to attend
National leaders representing just 14% of planet-heating carbon emissions are expected to attend Cop31, by my count.
The heads of state or government of the five biggest polluters – China, US, India, Russia and Japan – are not in Turkey as a two-day summit for world leaders gets under way at the UN climate negotiations. Just two of the top ten carbon emitters, oil giants Iran and Saudi Arabia, are to be represented by their national leaders.
Representation among the top twenty polluters is slightly better. National leaders are attending from Turkey and Australia, which are jointly hosting this year’s conference, Brazil, which hosted Cop last year, the UK, and Kazakhstan.
The analysis is based on a UN list of high-level speakers scheduled for today and tomorrow, along with emissions data for 2025 that was published this week in the annual global carbon budget report. It excludes EU countries whose national leader did not show, though the EU, which was responsible for about 6% of CO2 emissions last year, is represented by the Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen. Its inclusion would bring the share of carbon emissions represented at the summit by a world leader up to about 20%.
Heads of state and government do not directly influence the negotiations but their presence at climate summits is seen as a powerful symbol of how seriously they are taking the crisis, and their interventions can carry diplomatic weight.
Key events
‘The dinosaurs did not have a lobby. Fossil fuels do.’ – UN chief
Oliver Milman
Guterres launches into a plea for accelerated action to cut emissions and takes direct aim at the fossil fuel industry. The UN chief has already called on countries to push forward a phase out of fossil fuels, rather than merely hinting at it, here at Cop.
“The case for fossil fuels is collapsing,” he said. “Fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs. And that won’t happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby. Fossil fuels do.”
“It’s time to kick the habit – and end the fossil-fuel addiction,” he said. Guterres likes a good pun and one of his final climate speeches has a decent one: “It’s make or bake time.”
Oliver Milman
After a couple of hosts provide us a bit of background on Antalya (founded in 200BC, apparently) it is time to hear from António Guterres, the outgoing secretary-general of the UN, who will probably not be dancing.
Guterres starts by praising Turkey for the “excellent organization” of the Cop, which gets smattering of applause and perhaps a few raised eyebrows given the transport nightmares endured by attenders.
But then Guterres, a vocal climate action advocate, is down to business: “Our first climate duty is to tell the truth. The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us.”
Graham Readfearn
If you haven’t guessed already, I’m at the opening ceremony with my colleague Oliver Milman. We were rushed from a staging area to the plenary room by a UN police officer and I broke into a slight jog.
The “Legendary Dance Show: Fire of Anatolia” is, we think, coming to an end. It was very good. A gentleman who I assume is the choreographer is up front taking some plaudits.
The UN secretary general awaits. We don’t know the order in which they’ll speak so you’ll all be as surprised as us when it’s revealed.
Oliver Milman
I have seen previous opening ceremonies for Cops and this is by far the longest period of entertainment I’ve seen. Perhaps this is the payoff for the terrible transport and downbeat feel of the talks.
Graham Readfearn
We’re now on lots of drone shots of Turkish landscapes and more dancers letting out the occasional defiant shout. Some applause. More drones shots. This is drone heavy. And then even more dancers.
Everyone looks as though they are having the best time. It’s fun, but I a starting to wonder how many more dancers they have hidden backstage ready to come out. Perhaps there are some quick costume changes.
We have lost the climate theme really, and now it’s just a fun dance-off – more tourism advert than a climate call-to-action. But you have to have some fun I suppose.
Graham Readfearn
The opening ceremony has begun, and we’re waiting for the UN secretary general and the prime ministers of Australia and Turkey to speak. But first we’ve had a film and dance show with someone dancing and dressed as a tree. It’s better than it sounds.
Now we have dancers who are caught up in plastic rubbish. Cutting waste is one of the big themes at this Cop. The Turkish president’s wife Emine Erdogan is big on it.
And we’ve got traditional dancers in front of agricultural scenes and now Turkish landmarks. We are entertained.
Leaders representing less than one-fifth of CO2 pollution to attend
National leaders representing just 14% of planet-heating carbon emissions are expected to attend Cop31, by my count.
The heads of state or government of the five biggest polluters – China, US, India, Russia and Japan – are not in Turkey as a two-day summit for world leaders gets under way at the UN climate negotiations. Just two of the top ten carbon emitters, oil giants Iran and Saudi Arabia, are to be represented by their national leaders.
Representation among the top twenty polluters is slightly better. National leaders are attending from Turkey and Australia, which are jointly hosting this year’s conference, Brazil, which hosted Cop last year, the UK, and Kazakhstan.
The analysis is based on a UN list of high-level speakers scheduled for today and tomorrow, along with emissions data for 2025 that was published this week in the annual global carbon budget report. It excludes EU countries whose national leader did not show, though the EU, which was responsible for about 6% of CO2 emissions last year, is represented by the Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen. Its inclusion would bring the share of carbon emissions represented at the summit by a world leader up to about 20%.
Heads of state and government do not directly influence the negotiations but their presence at climate summits is seen as a powerful symbol of how seriously they are taking the crisis, and their interventions can carry diplomatic weight.
Pippa Neill
The extreme wildfires of 2025 were made three times more likely due to human-caused climate breakdown, according to leading scientists.
The State of Wildfires report shows how across Canada, Chile and Mediterranean Europe, human influence and a rapidly changing climate are making the most severe wildfires more frequent, intense, costly and deadly.
2025 saw the largest area burned from wildfires on record across the European Union. The wildfire season was particularly severe in Iberia, where more than 40,000 people were evacuated as 14 “megafires” raged in the region. A megafire is defined as a burned area of at least 100 square kilometres.
The study found the climate crisis made the fires in Iberia three times more likely and the area burned was three times larger.
In Canada, the 2025 wildfires, which claimed 35 lives, were 85% more likely than they would have been without human-caused climate breakdown. The area burned was also around nine times larger.
The study found that under the current warming projections, fires similar to the ones seen in 2025 could burn around one-third more area within the next 20 years. However, in the regions studied, the researchers found that a pathway to reduce global emissions broadly in line with the Paris Agreement could reduce the area burned during extreme events by around 5-36% when compared with a plausible high-emissions future.
Chantelle Burton, a wildfire scientist at the Met Office and lead author of the study, said: “The findings show a clear message: we are already seeing the visible impacts of climate change on extreme fires around the world. However, with strong action to cut emissions, we can still avoid worse fires happening in the future.”
Oliver Milman
Solving the climate crisis is hard but even getting to the venue to discuss it has become a challenge here in Antalya. Snarled roads and packed trams left people waiting for hours in traffic and lines yesterday and there was widespread horror at the prospect of an even worse situation this morning with the arrival of world leaders.
The Cop31 venue, on the outskirts of Antalya, is festooned with police and masked soldiers as the leaders arrive, with roads blocked or narrowed. The presence of VIPs often causes some delay at Cops but this summit has been unusually arduous.
Fears among attenders were stoked by garbled and often contradictory messages from the UN about access and when to get here. Did you have to arrive between 5am and 7am or just set off by this time? Will taxis be allowed anywhere near the venue? Will the venue just be completely sealed off after 8.30am? Messages were shared and some retracted, as confusion reigned.
“We would be on the road at 5am if we knew it would get us in, but this level of unpredictability sends civil society one message: stay home,” complained Mahir Ilgaz, a campaigner at Oil Change International.
Once bleary-eyed delegates arrived, many having left very early to get in, they were at least treated to the customary free apple and chocolate bar that organisers have been handing out. A rare bright spot for this rather muddled Cop.
Welcome back to the Cop31 liveblog. The next two days will see a flurry of speeches from about 100 world leaders – mainly heads of state and government, as well as some seconds-in-command, princes, and special representatives – who have traveled to Antalya, Turkey, for urgent talks on the safety of the planet. We’ll be bringing you updates from inside the plenary hall.
Day 3 of Cop31 kicks off
Damien Gayle
As day three of the UN climate summit kicks off, world leaders from dozens of countries are expected. But heads of government from Canada, Japan and across Europe have got lost on the road, civil society observers report.
Today is the Cop31 leaders’ summit in Antalya, where world leaders are supposed to appear, hear each others’ concerns and pledge their commitment to solving the climate crisis.
But attendance is looking a little thin. Germany, France, Italy, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Canada, and Japan are among those countries whose leaders have chosen not to make an appearance. That is a heavyweight non-lineup. It means the UK will be the only member of the G7 whose leader has bothered to show.
Every day of the talks, civil society organisation Climate Action Network awards a “fossil of the day” to individuals, organisations or countries that have hindered progress the most. It’s a Cop tradition. Tuesday’s went to “the absent leaders of wealthy countries”.
Instead, notes CAN, several are headed for Dublin, where EU leaders will hold their first dedicated AI summit on Friday. “The future of AI is apparently worth showing up for, while the future of the planet can wait,” CAN says in a press statement.
UNFCCC Cops run in cycles, and it is fair to say that Antalya is not regarded as one of the really exciting, pivotal ones. However, after the relatively damp squib outcome of Cop30 in Belém, much remains to be thrashed out in Cop31. Splits over climate finance, the just transition and trade need smoothing over.
Of course, not everyone is staying away. Brazil’s president Lula will travel to Antalya. He is riding high after snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in a presidential election runoff vote last month. Brazil’s leadership developing roadmaps to end deforestation and transition away from fossil fuels have earned him a leading place in the sparse pantheon of climate heroes. Ursula von der Leyen, the powerful president of the European Commission, is also expected. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, will attend.
