The journey to COP31 and a quest for transformative change

How did we get here? Five years in climate action

COP26 Glasgow

COP26 saw a reasonable rise in ambitions from many countries’ Nationally-Determined Contributions (NDCs), leading to projections that temperature rises could be reduced by as much as a degree of warming. However, subsequent analysis has shown less positive progress, particularly given the challenges for implementing many climate goals. 

The summit in Glasgow also launched the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, intended to align more than 100 trillion USD towards investments in climate action, though challenges around definitions and taxonomy undermined its capacity to achieve that goal. 

Despite many good initiatives with poor implementation, COP26’s legacy remains stronger when it comes to the multilateral agreements negotiated through the summit, such as the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, the Global Forest Finance Pledge, and the Methane Pledge to cut emissions by 30% by 2030. Coupled with the increased commitment in NDCs, these pledges have supported real progress on some crucial topics.

COP27 Sharm El-Sheikh

A year later in Sharm El-Sheikh, COP27 did not significantly increase the ambition that had been set out at COP26, but negotiations made progress on two critical issues: adaptation and loss and damage. COP27 saw an increase in funding and action on adaptation through agreements such as the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda and the Global Shield Against Climate Risks. It also kickstarted conversations on loss and damage that would be paid off at subsequent summits.

Around the same time, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its Sixth Assessment Report, consolidating the latest evidence on the science underpinning climate change, the state of adaptation and resilience, and the effectiveness of various mitigation measures.

COP28 Dubai

COP28 built on both its predecessor and the science published by the IPCC, leading to the UAE Consensus, an agreement by parties to “transition away from fossil fuels”. The consensus was viewed as an important step towards meeting the obligations of the Paris Agreement, though it was criticised for not amounting to a commitment to phase out fossil fuels entirely.

The summit also saw progress on a range of other issues, including the delivery of an agreement on the Loss and Damage Fund, the conclusion of the first Global Stocktake to measure progress on climate action, negotiations towards financing and roll-out for the Global Goal on Adaptation, and a Roadmap to 1.5 from the Food and Agriculture Organization. 

Amidst the strong commitments and progress on secondary issues, concerns were beginning to rise that the level of ambition presented in global negotiations was not being seen through to the delivery of outcomes on the ground. Implementation, increasingly, was becoming the biggest challenge.

COP29 Baku

COP29 in Baku faced part of that challenge head on, with the aspiration to be a ‘finance COP’ where money moved to support effective action. Its main outcome was the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG). Despite an increased ambition for public and private finance of 1.3trillion USD per year to developing countries by 2035, the NCQG was met with heavy controversy and prompted the Alliance of Small Island States to walk out of negotiations.

Research published at the time suggested the need for far greater amounts of finance by emerging markets and developing countries, with 1trillion USD a year needed by 2025 and as much as 2.4trillion by 2030.

Even as COP29 oversaw the full operationalisation of the Loss and Damage Fund, the finalisation of technical rules relating to carbon markets under Article 6, and a range of high-level pledges like the Global Energy Storage and Grids Pledge, the COP29 Hydrogen Declaration, and the Pledge on Green Energy Zones and Corridors, it had become clear that the platform of annual COPs was not making as much progress on implementation as the urgency of the crisis required. Even a dedicated ‘finance COP’ had been insufficient to keep finance on track.

COP30 Belém

In that context, expectations on COP30 were high, as the summit fell at a key stage in the process set out under the Paris Agreement, with many hoping it might put implementation back on track. Ultimately, the final agreement at COP30 has been widely seen as failing to make sufficient progress, with no mention of phasing out fossil fuels and limited new commitments to collective action.

Although COP30 continued to make progress, the pace of action had slowed significantly, with diminishing returns at the highest level of climate negotiations. In search of a way to accelerate action, Colombia hosted a conference in Santa Marta at the end of April 2026, uniting a coalition of countries willing to take more action to support the transition away from fossil fuels.

Nearly 60 countries took part, along with subnational governments and other key stakeholders, aiming to establish a tangible process to enable action and planning to support the transition in practice. As this was only the first conference in the new process, it is yet to be seen if it will reinvigorate the global approach to climate action. 

What to expect from COP31

Given the well-recognised challenges for implementation, the delivery of commitments is likely to be a major point of negotiations for COP31, including how action is financed and supported. It is also likely that the increase in extreme weather will bring adaptation and resilience back into the spotlight.

The COP31 Presidency has set out six priority areas for negotiations: 

1. Electrification
2. Zero Waste and Methane Reduction
3. Resilient Cities and Buildings 
4. Green Industrialisation 
5. Awareness Across All Areas 
6. Climate Implementation Bridge

The Presidency has also published a provisional programme for negotiations, including themes for each day:

• Monday 9th November: Food, Agriculture and Health 
• Tuesday 10th November: Energy and Transport 
• Wednesday 11th November: World Leaders’ Summit / Zero waste
• Thursday 12th November: World Leaders’ Summit / Resilient Cities and Built Environment 
• Friday 13th November: Finance and Trade
• Saturday 14th November: Children, Youth, Education and Skills 
• Sunday 15th November: “A breath in Antalya” / Rest day 
• Monday 16th November: Science, Industry and Technology 
• Tuesday 17th November: Ocean, Seas, Nature and Land Use / Rio Synergy 
• Wednesday 18th November: Human and Social Development 
• Thursday 19th November: İmece: Enhancing Implementation 
• Friday 20th November: Final Negotiations

With zero waste and the built environment as themes for the programme on the two days of the World Leaders’ Summit, the stage may be set for high-level agreements on one or both topics.

Read the briefing for more information on key topics for each day and what each of the six priority areas means in practice. The briefing also includes the COP31 Action Agenda and insights on what to expect from negotiations based on the information we have so far.

What needs to change?

Reflecting back on the work we produced five years ago, we wrote in 2021 that “it is often the quality of implementation, and not the quality of negotiations, that determines the success of major environmental commitments”. We are still fighting that battle for effective implementation, which undoubtedly remains the biggest priority for COP31.

Last year, we brought our interdisciplinary network of environmental experts back together through our Climate Action Community, which produced our position statement on COP30: Delivering change in a complex world. 

The key messages in that report make clear what needs to change in our approach: 

1. Fight for a better future, not just to survive 
2. Facing complexity now makes the future simpler 
3. Focus on better services to create more value 
4. Do it the right way, don’t do it twice 
5. Doing more costs less 
6. Work together, share successes 
7. Make it fair, make it just 
8. Plans need to add up, to deliver our ambitions 
9. Embrace an era of local climate leadership 
10. Don’t stop until it’s done 

Check out the full report for details on each message. It is possible to deliver change in a complex world, we just need an approach that recognises the systems driving climate change and works within them, seeking ambitious transformative change.

That urgency for transformative, rather than incremental change is what has been missing from global climate action over the last five years. If we want COP31 to restart the acceleration of international action, it needs to be focused on how we can actually deliver, how we can be more ambitious, and how we can use systems to our advantage, rather than becoming blocked by them.

Challenging as that might be, it’s the only way to get us back on the path to a sustainable future. The work we need to do together is as demanding as ever, yet the quest for transformative change continues.

Get involved

If you want to support the work of the IES to stand up for science and nature, become an affiliate, or if you’re an environmental professional, join the IES.

• Read more about how we can act on climate change in our recent report, Delivering change in a complex world or in our recommendations for the UK on climate change
• Join our Environmental Policy Implementation Community to support the delivery of effective policy and find out more about our Climate Action Community
• Sign up for our training course on ‘Understanding environmental policy’ and our intermediate course on 'Influencing and Engaging with policy'.
• Learn more about recent policy developments in our briefings on clean air, water policy and land and nature policy.
• Find out more by reading the latest articles from Essential Environment, including insights on how vision and worldviews affect outcomes and our analysis on what the latest NPPF changes mean for environmental experts.
• If you want to learn more about environmental policy or the training we offer for members, please contact Joseph Lewis, Head of Policy (joseph@the-ies.org).

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