The great innovation that made the Paris Agreement possible was a nationally led approach. For a decade, implementation has been uneven at best. In Antalya, the bottom-up design of the Paris Agreement may finally deliver: while negotiations stagnate, national, near-term self-interest is now delivering rapid, real-world climate action.
The costs of clean energy have continued to plummet. As a result, global wind capacity nearly doubled between 2019 and 2024, while solar capacity quadrupled; now renewables generate more electricity than coal. One in every four new cars sold in 2025 was electric.
But the big difference is that clean energy, energy efficiency and electrification are now core to security and affordability in many regions. Europe sees strategic autonomy from Russian gas and US LNG; East and South Asia see a safeguard against volatility in the Gulf region; Africa sees the fastest, cheapest route to universal energy access. With ever cheaper green tech available, governments are embracing the opportunity to reduce their dependence on unreliable trade partners, vulnerable supply chains and centralised generation infrastructure.
In short, political and market forces now overwhelmingly favour green and clean. The transition will be messy and slower than hoped but, for most countries, decoupling from fossil fuels is now in their near-term best interest.
The disconnect with the negotiations
However, the profound evolution in national interests hasn’t made it through to countries’ latest national climate plans (Nationally Determined Contributions) or negotiating positions.
Current policies leave us on track for 2.8°C of warming by the end of the century; NDCs (which include targets not yet translated into policies) only shave off a further 0.2°C. Several G20 countries – including the COP31 co-hosts – have set the bar so low that they will probably exceed their most recent targets without any new policies next decade. The compelling economics of clean tech is simply outpacing political ambition.
Meanwhile, negotiating positions are entrenched in an archaic developed-developing country divide. ‘Archaic’ not because international inequalities don’t persist, but because the list of ‘developed countries’ dates back to 1992. Thus newly high-income and high-emitting countries (like Korea, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the UAE) fly under the radar within the climate regime. Progressive developed countries get little credit for their efforts, tarnished as they are by the US failure to deliver anything like its fair share of climate finance. And the most vulnerable developing countries end up negotiating alongside states that are either deeply vested in continued coal, oil and gas production, or use the climate negotiations to advance other geopolitical agendas.
The consensus-based approach to decision-making within the UNFCCC proves another challenge, allowing individual countries and blocs to weaken the language and extract concessions. One way that this played out at COP30 is by the weaponisation of gender. Several countries and blocs pushed for regressive alternatives to ‘gender equality’ (a long-accepted term in the negotiations) or sought to delete mentions of gender altogether. The backlash is coming from countries at various levels of income: the Arab Group, Argentina, the Holy See, Iran, Russia and the Like-Minded Developing Countries (which includes heavyweights China and India).
Most of the time, these negotiating positions prove tactical rather than ideological: gender is used as a bargaining chip to dilute commitments in other tracks, like mitigation. But in the meantime, progressive blocs from both sides of the aisle – most notably the Alliance of Small Island States and the European Union – must spend time defending hard-won gains on gender and other human rights alongside pushing for greater climate ambition and cooperation.
Funding the frontlines
The fiercest fight in the negotiations is always about finance.
Some observers – including me – optimistically thought that the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) decision in 2024 might enable the negotiations to move on to other issues. How wrong we were. Just one year later, COP30 established a Climate Finance Work Programme, which will kick off in Antalya.
There is a real risk that this new space will replicate and sustain the confrontational dynamics, with a push by large developing countries to focus narrowly on the provision of public finance by developed countries – a subject already addressed within the NCQG. A better use of the Climate Finance Work Programme would be to focus on delivering the whole NCQG package. This will require a concerted effort by a very large number of financial actors, including the private sector. All hands are needed for the enormous challenge of funding climate action.
In particular, the urgency of investing in adaptation has never been more stark. While investment in clean energy systems may be growing rapidly, it is too little and too late to avoid overshoot of the 1.5°C target. Climate shocks have come thick and fast this year; the strong El Niño is already wreaking destruction and will not peak until December. Next year, heat records will almost certainly be shattered again, fuelling widespread food insecurity.
The heaviest toll will be borne by those living in small island developing states, least developed countries, and fragile and conflict-affected states. These places tend to be highly exposed to climate hazards, and people on very low incomes do not have the financial resources to mitigate shocks or recover afterwards. On top of that, conflict weakens the institutions, infrastructure and social ties that allow communities to anticipate and absorb climate shocks.
Yet despite the clear need, the climate finance architecture is not well set-up to reach such countries. Reforms such as re-thinking eligibility criteria for development finance or resourcing permanent government positions to build institutional capacity may be necessary for more adaptation finance to reach the communities on the frontlines of climate change. Without such efforts, the increasing frequency and severity of climate impacts will contribute to increased violence, poverty, hunger, migration and displacement, with the consequences spilling out beyond national borders.
Coalitions for action
There are few paths to advance these reforms within the negotiations; even if the routes existed, they would be easily blocked due to the consensus-based system. But the COP offers other solutions.
The Action Agenda has long allowed coalitions of the willing to make progress on areas of mutual interest outside the formal negotiations. Critical arenas such as cities, health, forests and food have all thrived there in a way they have not – and perhaps could not – within the negotiations.
The Brazilian COP30 Presidency built on this approach with roadmaps. The Baku to Belém Roadmap elevated the conversation on finance, setting out how different financial actors could come together to unlock the $1.3 trillion a year by 2035 called for in the NCQG. The Roadmap to Transition Away from Fossil Fuels gives frontrunning countries a space to reaffirm their commitment to phase-out fossil fuels and to build clean economies. Both finance and mitigation are fundamental pillars of climate action, and will now be meaningfully discussed in Antalya.
The COP31 co-hosts are using the Action Agenda in the same spirit. Türkiye, supported by Australia, is gathering support for a global electrification goal (35% of final energy use by 2035), recognising that they need to nod to mitigation even if they cannot overcome the gridlock within the negotiations. Australia has championed a Declaration on Climate Finance Access for SIDS and LDCs, which could put more political impetus behind difficult reforms.
The gridlock in negotiations matters less and less to the energy transition, which now has its own momentum. But on other fronts, Action Agenda initiatives and roadmaps are proving critical for building shared understandings and strengthening coalitions of the willing. We look forward to working with many of you in Antalya to sustain and advance international climate cooperation, despite the US withdrawal and Saudi Arabia’s latest point of order.