COP31 in Antalya: Without climate finance, there is no implementation

By: Sandra Guzman, Founder an General Director, GFLAC

By Sandra Guzman, GFLAC 

From 9 to 20 November 2026, Antalya (Türkiye) hosts COP31 in a year of heatwaves, wildfires, floods and droughts. 2026 could be the hottest year on record, and UNEP warns that the world is on track to exceed the 1.5 °C limit.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the intensification of El Niño is worsening the picture, and the impacts hit lower-income communities first and hardest. Added to this are cuts to international cooperation, geopolitical tensions, fiscal constraints and debt. The limited progress made at the Bonn sessions (SB64) also reflects the difficulty of building consensus on core issues in the climate negotiations.

Türkiye, as the COP Presidency, and Australia, as President of Negotiations, face the challenge of rebuilding trust in the multilateral climate regime. This shared leadership arrangement will test their capacity to coordinate and build consensus in a particularly complex international context.

In this context, COP31 must show whether international commitments can be translated into concrete decisions to scale up climate finance, improve access conditions and respond to the needs of developing countries.

A “COP of implementation” without means of implementation

Türkiye has called it the “COP of Implementation.” For global and regional networks such as the Latin American and Caribbean Network for a Sustainable Financial System (REDFIS), a COP declared as such but lacking the means to implement is a contradiction. The underlying problem is not only the limited provision and mobilization of climate finance for developing countries, but also the growth of financing for carbon-intensive activities, which shows that the problem lies not only in the availability of resources, but in the political decisions about how and where to direct them.

The data make this clear. In 2024, the 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries analyzed by the Sustainable Finance Index received USD 18.2 billion for climate change and biodiversity, barely 28.6% of the development finance they received. Resources were concentrated in mitigation, which received twice as much as adaptation (54.4% versus 27.2%). Moreover, 89.2% came in the form of loans and only 6.8% as grants. This reliance on debt strains fiscal space and limits investment in adaptation, loss and damage, and the just energy transition. In addition, revenues from carbon-intensive activities, including oil, gas, coal and mineral exports, were twelve times higher than revenues from sustainable activities, reflecting a persistent fiscal structure tied to activities with negative environmental impacts.

The core finance priorities for COP31

1. Give the Climate Finance Work Programme (CFWP) a formal anchor. Without a space in the negotiations or a clear decision on its objectives and scope, it risks becoming a dialogue without results. CMA8 must adopt a decision with a phased or thematic mandate for 2027–2028, with an explicit reference to Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement and including an annual report. It is necessary to request a comparative report between what developed countries project (Article 9.5 communications) and what they actually report (Biennial Transparency Reports), in order to identify gaps and feed into the second Global Stocktake. 

2. Chart the path to the USD 300 billion of the NCQG. The Baku to Belém Roadmap does not include the route to that goal, and COP31 must define it. Multilateral development banks must present a plan with interim targets. In addition, the World Bank Group’s decision to withdraw its target of allocating 45% of its financing to operations with climate benefits calls previous commitments into question. Quality matters as much as quantity: timely access, transparency and instruments that do not increase debt must be guaranteed. Nor should climate resources finance “false solutions” that perpetuate dependence on fossil fuels or violate human rights. 

3. Establish a space to triple adaptation finance. It was one of the demands that most united the developing world at COP30, yet today there is no place to discuss its implementation. Such a space must be created, whether in the decision on the Global Goal on Adaptation or in that of the CFWP, with a plan setting out how this goal will be achieved and with what public, concessional and grant-based resources. 

4. New commitments from developed countries. Public finance remains the foundation of climate action for most developing countries. Before or during COP31, developed countries must announce individual, quantified and multi-year commitments for the post-2025 period, clearly distinguishing between the provision of public resources and the mobilization of other sources of finance. Without these clear announcements from developed countries, nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and adaptation plans will hardly translate into concrete action. 

5. Increase resources for multilateral funds. The flows of the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism must triple relative to 2022 by 2030 at the latest, yet contributions to the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) have fallen. COP31 must drive new contributions, particularly to the Adaptation Fund and the Fund for responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD). The dispute over the composition of the Adaptation Fund Board must be resolved, giving developing countries a majority and avoiding further blockages that delay the delivery of resources. 

6. Implement Article 2.1.c with safeguards. According to GFLAC’s 2026 Sustainable Finance Index, based on 2025 data, the region’s carbon-intensive revenues were twelve times higher than sustainable revenues, while in public spending the ratio was 3.8 to 1. Correcting this requires reforms that discourage extractivism and connect the processes of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with the reform of the financial system and international tax cooperation. Otherwise, the alignment of financial flows will become a demand without the means to meet it. 

7. Guarantee adequate resources for loss and damage. Loss and damage finance must not compete with resources for adaptation or mitigation, nor be counted as humanitarian aid or as pre-existing finance that has simply been relabelled. Without substantive replenishment, the FRLD risks becoming an “empty shell.” The Santiago Network and the Warsaw International Mechanism also need stable and predictable resources to fulfil their functions. 

8. Launch the just transition mechanism. It must clearly define its functions, operating modalities and governance structure, and its financing must be public, predictable and grant-based. A just transition means decent work, social protection, territorial justice and the effective participation of communities, Indigenous Peoples, women, youth and environmental defenders. It is not a mitigation agenda dressed up in social language, but an economic, fiscal, labour and territorial transformation.  

9. Continue the Mitigation Work Programme and move away from fossil fuels. Climate ambition without finance is a unilateral demand. The roadmaps on fossil fuels and deforestation must have targets, timelines and accountability mechanisms, with a rights-based approach and public, concessional financing, without promoting the financialization of nature. 

10. Defend multilateralism and mobilize equitable sources. The UNFCCC is the only space where all countries have an equal voice. Voluntary initiatives add value, but do not replace obligations between States. The resources exist: every year hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on wars and fossil fuel subsidies, while oil companies record windfall profits. Taxing those profits, first-class and private flights, and great fortunes can complement, but never replace, the public provision under Article 9.1.  

A final call

The success of Antalya will be measured by the decisions of the COP, not by non-binding announcements. There can be no implementation without confidence that finance will arrive. Without public, fair, reparative and rights-based climate finance, there will be no just transition, no effective adaptation and no adequate response to loss and damage.