From Bonn and London to Antalya – what’s needed to build success by COP31 

By Cosima Cassel, Seleha Sara Lockwood, Katrine Tilgaard Petersen

June saw the UNFCCC intersessional climate talks (SB64) take place in Bonn, followed by a sweltering London Climate Action Week. The two moments presented sharp contrasts: talks stalled across most negotiation rooms in Bonn, whereas a clear message that implementation continues to accelerate across governments, finance institutions, business and civil society came out of London. To succeed, COP31 must build a stronger bridge between negotiations and real-world momentum to accelerate implementation and strengthen confidence in delivery. 

SB64 produced few tangible breakthroughs, largely deferring politically difficult decisions to COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye. While there were useful results out of the Just Transition Work Programme negotiations, no significant progress was made on other mitigation issues, adaptation or finance. Loss and damage did not even feature in the official agenda. Questions around response measures, technology, and capacity-building also remain open, and delegates clashed over how climate science should be formally integrated into the UN process. Developing countries left Bonn demanding clearer pathways from wealthier nations to deliver on long-promised support needed to transition into the new era of implementation.   

The following week, London Climate Action Week (LCAW) took place against a record-breaking heatwave, where a number of events were cancelled due to the extreme heat. LCAW demonstrated that while the climate crisis is accelerating, real-world climate action is also continuing to grow, leading to the biggest LCAW yet. The agenda featured a multitude of events demonstrating how countries and other stakeholders are delivering on national and global commitments. The landmark speech by the UN Secretary General on responding to the twin crises of climate impacts and fossil fuel supply and price shocks, and framing climate risk as economic risk as a rationale for mobilising much greater sums of finance, as well as the strong presence of public and private finance institutions and the COP29, COP30, COP31, and COP32 presidencies, provided strong overarching framing and political momentum.  

Looking ahead, the autumn will provide several critical moments in the diplomatic calendar to build the political conditions for success at COP31 and bring the real-world momentum seen in London into negotiations.  

• The United Nations General Assembly and New York Climate Week in September will be the next key moment for leaders to amplify how climate action remains central to addressing wider challenges around energy security, affordability and economic resilience, while maintaining focus on finance, adaptation and escalating climate impacts.  
• The Pre-COP in Fiji in October will provide the last opportunity for ministers to narrow differences ahead of Antalya, identify landing zones on the most challenging issues, and maintain focus on the priorities of climate-vulnerable countries. It will also be an important opportunity to elevate discussions on adaptation, access to finance, and the transition away from fossil fuels. The Leaders segment will see world leaders traveling to Tuvalu, co-lead of the next Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF). This provides a key opportunity for momentum and greater focus on TAFF in the Pre-COP Leaders’ agenda.   
• The October World Bank and IMF Annual Meetings in Bangkok will provide an important opportunity before COP31 to advance discussions on access to finance, MDB reform and mobilisation of investment needed to restore confidence that climate finance commitments will be delivered.  Perceived progress on these issues could provide confidence that delivery and enhancement of financial flows is taking place and thus provide much needed positive energy for shaping success at COP31. 

Below we lay out the key takeaways from Bonn and LCAW and what is needed from these upcoming diplomatic milestones to build on this success in Antalya. 

What we learnt from Bonn and London and where to go from here 

1. Presidency dynamics are complex and extra effort is necessary to ensure alignment across the Presidencies.

Although the COP31 Presidency Türkiye and Presidency of Negotiations Australia have repeatedly emphasised their strong collaboration, there is a need to ensure greater joint prioritisation and alignment going forward. Electrification is emerging as a joint priority, but greater clarity is needed on the joint political strategy of the Presidencies to drive this forward. Beyond this, there are notable differences in emphasis. While Türkiye has identified no less than ten Action Agenda priorities, and elevated waste as a flagship theme, Australia has placed greater weight on access to finance, Pacific priorities, and keeping 1.5 C within reach. Neither Türkiye nor Australia have signaled how they intend to spur efforts to implement the goal of transitioning away from fossil fuels agreed in the Global Stocktake (GST) decision at COP28 in Dubai.  

In the second half of the year, the Presidencies should focus on aligning further around a small number of shared priorities, and clarifying the concrete outcomes, approaches and responsibilities that sit beneath them to ensure alignment across negotiations and the Action Agenda. Deploying complementary leadership will be mutually reinforcing and critical  ahead of COP31. As Presidency of Negotiations, Australia needs to more clearly outline its priority negotiating outcomes from Antalya and start to engage ministers in identifying the political package of decisions needed to achieve them.   

More widely, engagement from both Türkiye and Australia with Ethiopia must start to intensify, to ensure the COP31 approach and desired outcomes will be picked up and supported by the future COP32 Presidency, and to ensure actions taken now are in line with and support the path towards an ambitious GST2 decision at COP33.  

1. Mobilising and unlocking access to finance for implementation is a central challenge

Climate finance delivery remains the deepest fracture between Parties, on volume, access and architecture alike, and COP31 will not succeed unless these issues are addressed directly.  On the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), COP31 must show visible movement towards delivery.  Australia should use its negotiating mandate to push for a clearer accounting methodology and firmer interim donor milestones to 2035, helping to rebuild trust deficit following Bonn. It should also drive efforts to remove barriers preventing SIDS and LDCs from accessing finance, while advocating reforms that address the systemic conditions, fragmented fund architecture, and capacity constraints. In parallel, Türkiye should convene a COP31 Circle of Finance Ministers, building on Brazil’s Belém initiative, and give the Baku to Belém expert group’s October report on financing pathways a proper platform at Antalya.  

But the NCQG is only one element. Unlocking finance at scale will require systemic shifts in how the international financial architecture values climate action. Recent updates by S&P and Moody’s to their MDB rating methodologies signal that this thinking is beginning to shift, potentially unlocking billions in additional lending headroom. At COP31, the Presidencies should work with MDBs and donors to translate this into concrete action on finance, ensuring public development banks make more ambitious use of their balance sheets and that regulatory frameworks more explicitly recognise their risk-mitigating role.  

Accelerating country-led delivery will also be critical. Investment platforms that connect national priorities to bankable pipelines, including through emerging mechanisms like the Public Development Bank Guarantee Hub working with national development banks, offer a pathway to scale finance in a fragmented landscape. COP31 should elevate these mechanisms as implementation tools through which countries can deliver NDCs and transition roadmaps. The Action Agenda and Circle of Finance Ministers provide platforms to showcase progress and build confidence that the broader financial architecture can evolve to meet the moment.  

Finance also has impacts on delivery across a number of other priorities, as outlined below. 

1. Strategy must be developed for unblocking negotiation rooms

Adaptation finance and the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) are emerging as significant fault lines ahead of COP31. Lack of progress in Bonn underscored the need for a more proactive and better coordinated diplomatic strategy within and across blocs to build upon the areas of convergence. The EU and other key partners should prioritise sustained engagement with the Africa Group and LDCs, using bilateral relationships to identify pathways to compromise. Both of the COP31 Presidency countries also have a crucial role: Australia must prioritise the issue and invest political capital to bridge entrenched divides, while in parallel, Türkiye can use the Action Agenda, including the Climate Implementation Bridge, to mobilise implementation partnerships and help unlock finance for adaptation to support momentum into the negotiations. 

Divisions remained over the continuation, role and effectiveness of the Mitigation Work Programme (MWP), with Parties unable to agree on any substantive outcome on the two weeks of negotiations. Breaking this deadlock before Antalya will require active political coalition-building across blocs to ensure the MWP can deliver on implementation while responding credibly to developing country concerns on finance, means of implementation and equity. Framing the MWP as a platform that accelerates delivery of NDCs and providing assurances that it will not lead to new obligations are both necessary to create the conditions for its continuation beyond 2027.  

Despite broad friction, negotiators made incremental headway in developing a practical framework for a supporting development and implementation of just transition pathways at the national, subnational, and regional levels. If successfully established at COP31, this mechanism could assist efforts to protect jobs and community well-being while reshaping energy systems. But questions on increasing the mobilisation of finance needed for these transitions and how the new mechanism will complement other elements of the UNFCCC implementation architecture must be addressed. The Presidency and Parties must also work to champion the voices of local communities, subnational actors, workers, indigenous peoples, and others in the process.  

1. Clean energy transition as a route to security and resilience

Coming out of LCAW, political attention remains centred on the impacts of the Strait of Hormuz closure and the strategic and security imperative for reducing fossil fuel dependence through a shift to clean, resilient economies. The COP31 Presidencies now have a major opening to embed this agenda at the heart of the COP Leader’s Summit and Action Agenda as a response to geopolitical turmoil and fossil fuel volatility. 

At Bonn, Türkiye announced electrification as a COP31 Action Agenda priority. The following week, a group of governments including the COP31 Presidencies launched the international “Electrify Now” platform to drive electrification delivery in the real economy further. Turning this momentum into a coherent approach via the Action Agenda will require politically elevating and supporting country action on clean power, No New Coal, electrification, and financing to boost grids rollout, and energy access and green industrialisation in EMDEs. Enabling real-economy implementation on clean energy transition will be defining metrics of success for COP31, including at home for Türkiye and Australia themselves – two of the last remaining OECD countries without a coal phaseout date, and Türkiye still planning new coal. 

However, progress on clean power and electrification alone won’t be enough. Türkiye and Australia will need to work with Brazil and Ethiopia to ensure continuity on platforms for dialogue on implementing the global transition away from fossil fuels (TAFF) as part of GST1, including follow-on from the COP30 Presidency’s global TAFF roadmap initiative. Elevating examples from Parties on national TAFF roadmaps as routes to NDC implementation, new green industrial opportunities and development, and building on the new political cooperation space emerging through the Santa Marta TAFF process, will be key. 

Australia and Türkiye also have an opportunity to translate the political momentum on methane from COP30 into a practical delivery agenda. Accelerating action to cut fossil methane and tackle waste methane offers one of the fastest and most cost-effective routes to climate action, while reducing waste, strengthening energy security and economic resilience, and delivers rapid emissions reductions with existing, low-cost technologies.  

Finally, Parties, industry, and multilateral and national development banks will need to build confidence in delivery through concrete solutions and partnerships that unlock finance for areas that can turbocharge the transition, such as grids and storage, while also making sure the major financing gap in EMDEs is tackled head on. Focus must be on building on existing efforts, such as country platforms, as well as alliances like the Global Energy Transition Forum and Global Clean Power Alliance Finance Mission, while also facilitating new partnerships and deals to move the dial. 

1. Planning must start now to lay the groundwork for GST2 in 2028

The second GST process will begin at COP31 and finalise at COP33. It represents the next major strategic moment for the UN climate process. Unlike GST1, it will take place in a far more fragmented geopolitical environment, and facing more challenging dynamics within the UNFCCC process. If GST2 is to deliver a course-correcting response that is both ambitious and politically durable, countries must start actively shaping it now. That means reflecting on the lessons learnt from GST1, building early political alignment around what ambitious goals for the GST2 decision at COP33 could look like (including strengthening the implementation and enabling conditions needed to achieve any goals that are set), while developing strategies to address some of the risks and challenges facing the process in the current world order. It is also essential to create a clearer narrative that connects ambitious climate action to economic resilience, energy security, industrial transformation, and sustainable development priorities.  

Trade must be addressed to avoid this topic derailing GST2. Following the first UNFCCC Trade dialogue in Bonn, the COP Presidencies should adopt a two-track approach to use the remaining two dialogues and the high-level event at or before COP33 to recognise the positive role trade policy can play as a driver of international climate cooperation whilst also addressing tensions which risk disrupting climate progress and could compromise GST2 outcomes if not resolved. 

Defence of science is key to a succesful GST2 outcome; SB64 was a reminder that the scientific foundations of the UN climate process cannot be taken for granted. Discussions around the role of the IPCC and consideration of its forthcoming Seventh Assessment Report exposed growing political sensitivity around how scientific findings are reflected in negotiations. This does not yet amount to a wholesale rejection of climate science, but it does signal a more contested environment in which evidence itself is increasingly politicised. 

As climate impacts intensify, preserving the authority and integrity of the IPCC will be essential to the credibility of GST2. The Presidency, supportive Parties and non-state actors should therefore begin now to build a coalition around evidence-based decision-making, defend the central role of the IPCC in informing negotiations, and ensure that future Global Stocktake discussions remain anchored in the best available science. Without that foundation, GST2 risks becoming a debate about politics alone rather than a collective assessment of what science says is required. 

1. Shape the next phase of the COP process with a coherent implementation model

COP31 comes at a moment when the climate process is evolving from one focused primarily on negotiating commitments towards one centred on delivery. However, the implementation ecosystem emerging from recent COPs risks becoming fragmented, with multiple initiatives, platforms and processes operating in parallel. The period ahead should therefore focus on consolidating existing efforts and ensuring they work together towards shared outcomes. 

A key priority for the COP31 Presidencies will be to bring the negotiations and the Action Agenda into closer alignment. The Belem Mission to 1.5, Global Implementation Accelerator (GIA) and Climate Implementation Bridge (CIB) each have the potential to address critical barriers to implementation, but their roles, relationships and pathways for delivery need to become clearer. Providing greater definition on their respective functions, ensuring complementarity with the Action Agenda, MWP, JTWP, and other elements of the existing UNFCCC architecture, and demonstrating how they will translate political commitments into practical support will be essential to building confidence among Parties and stakeholders. 

This will require active engagement not only from the Presidencies, but from Parties, international institutions, non-Party stakeholders, and future Presidencies, including Ethiopia and whoever is selected as the COP33 Presidency, to collectively shape a forward-looking implementation model that can carry momentum from COP31 through to GST2 and beyond. 

Antalya and beyond – rebuilding confidence in delivery 

At this fragile moment for multilateralism, Antalya must show that the climate regime can still deliver and evolve to meet the moment. Doing so will require closer collaboration, agile political planning, and sustained diplomacy to unlock progress where negotiations remain stuck. Just as importantly, the progress already being made beyond the negotiations must be brought to the centre of the conversation: showing that implementation is accelerating where it is most needed, thus rebuilding confidence that the system can still deliver.  

Read the original post on E3G’s website.