The COP31 talks showcase a disastrous post-American world

Climate change activists protest against gas energy expansion at the COP31 climate conference in Antalya, Turkey, last Tuesday. | Bloomberg

Nov 15, 2026

If you want to glimpse the fate of our world after the abdication of American leadership, as humanity struggles to cope with its biggest problems, cast your eye toward Antalya, Turkey. This is where delegations from some 200 countries have gathered for COP31, the 31st conference of the United Nations treaty to slow down climate change.

You’ll see some Americans walking around that conference, including congressmen, governors, mayors and other state politicians. But for the second year in a row, you won’t run into a delegation from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Because there isn’t one.

Trump is boycotting not only the conference but the entire global effort to limit climate change. For the second time, he has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement of 2015, the pact in which the parties of the U.N. framework convention pledged to cap global warming at about 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. He’s even pulled the U.S. out of that framework convention itself, an exit that takes effect in February and a step that no other country has ever taken.

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