Mint Explainer | Hope or heartbreak: what will COP31 deliver?

Nearly 200 countries will gather in Türkiye amid mounting climate risks, with financing for vulnerable nations, the future of fossil fuels and the fading 1.5°C target set to dominate negotiations.

The United Nations (UN) annual climate summit opens next week amid energy turmoil, wars, soaring food prices and an intensifying El Niño. As nearly 200 countries gather in Antalya, Türkiye, climate finance, fossil fuels and the burden of global warming will dominate the agenda. Here’s what to expect.

What is on the agenda?

The 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31), scheduled for 9-20 November, will run on two tracks.

The first is formal negotiations, presided over by Australia’s climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen. Key sticking points include $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance for developing countries, support to help vulnerable nations adapt to climate shocks and the future of fossil fuels.

The second covers the host’s voluntary initiatives, from cleaner cities and waste reduction to healthier oceans and greater electrification. Its headline ambition is to raise electricity’s share of global energy supply to 35% by 2035, from 23% today.

What is India’s position?

India is expected to press for an equitable outcome, calling on developed countries to honour commitments on climate finance, adaptation support and technology transfer.

At a UN event in October, India argued that climate action must respect countries’ differing circumstances and development needs. It also cautioned against unilateral trade measures such as the European Union’s carbon border tax, which raises costs for Indian steel and other exports.

New Delhi is also expected to seek adaptation support for vulnerable communities and a just transition framework to protect livelihoods. It will cite its achievement of 50% non-fossil power capacity in 2025, five years ahead of target.

India has also updated its climate pledges, or Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), for 2031-35. These include a 47% reduction in gross domestic product (GDP) emissions intensity by 2035 from 2005 levels and a 60% share for non-fossil sources in installed power capacity.

What did the last summit achieve?

COP30, held in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, produced a compromise deal. Countries agreed to work towards tripling adaptation finance by 2035 and reaffirmed the goal of mobilizing $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance by then.

The deal also established a just transition mechanism to protect workers as economies decarbonize. But it sidestepped fossil fuels, offering no roadmap to move away from them. Brazil’s presidency said it would pursue voluntary roadmaps on fossil fuels and deforestation instead.

Is the Paris climate goal already out of reach?

The chance of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, as envisaged by the 2015 Paris Agreement, has been lost, according to the UN’s Emissions Gap Report 2026, released on 21 October.

Warming is expected to breach that threshold and peak at 1.7-1.8°C around mid-century. Still, a return to the 1.5°C pathway by 2100 remains possible, though it would require cutting emissions by about 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040 from 2025 levels, and removing roughly 320 billion tonnes of CO2 this century. Together, these offer a 50% chance of returning to the pathway.

The report also notes progress: renewable energy has surged since the Paris Agreement, coal and oil supply have grown more slowly than projected, and climate policies have curbed emissions in many countries.

Will COP31 reckon with the ‘super’ El Niño?

COP31 opens as an unprecedented El Niño builds in the Pacific. The event is expected to make 2027 warmer than 2024, potentially setting a new record.

El Niño is a natural climate cycle that compounds human-driven global warming but does not alter its long-term trajectory. It could, however, offer delegates a preview of a hotter world, with more severe droughts, floods and wildfires across regions.

A late-October update from the University of Chicago’s climate impact lab projects 857,000 global deaths from El Niño-related extreme heat between June 2026 and March 2027.

About the Author

Sayantan is a National Editor at Mint. As a part of its Long Story team, he writes on food and nutrition, agriculture, rural economy and climate change. His work is a blend of ground reportage and analysis where he unpacks news and trends from India’s hinterlands.<br><br>He also co-authors a fortnightly newsletter ‘Climate Change and You’ with a belief that how different sectors of the economy, and we as a species, shape and are shaped by the unfolding climate crisis, is a defining story of our times.<br><br>Before joining Mint in 2014, Sayantan worked as a correspondent and photographer with Down to Earth, an environment fortnightly, covering eastern Indian states. There he wrote on mining, environment, forests, tribes and farming. He’s been a journalist for 17+ years, most of it at Mint where he learnt how to tell human interest stories dispassionately.<br><br>Before joining journalism, Sayantan worked as a researcher at multiple think-tanks and at a non-profit, specializing in rural development and finance. Sayantan holds a Master’s and M.Phil. in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.<br><br>If you have a comment or a tip to share, he’s all ears at sayantan.bera@livemint.com.