The thirty-first Conference of the Parties opens in Antalya on 9 November with a structural novelty: a split presidency between Turkey and Australia, after neither could secure sole hosting rights. Australia will run the formal negotiations — just transition, climate finance, the 1.5°C work programme — while Turkey manages the voluntary "action agenda" covering methane, electrification, circular economy, and food security. The arrangement is unprecedented, and the division between binding and non-binding tracks may prove to be the most consequential feature of the summit. The United States, under Donald Trump, has formally withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. The White House will not attend. Several members of Congress, business leaders, and civil society groups will be present, but they carry no negotiating mandate. Trump's posture — maximising fossil fuel extraction domestically while waging war in Iran that has pushed oil prices higher — creates an irony that developing nations will not miss: the country most responsible for historical emissions is both absent from climate diplomacy and actively inflating the cost of the fossil fuels it champions. The formal agenda inherits unfinished business. Fossil fuels were only directly mentioned in a Cop final text for the first time at Cop28 in 2023, and even then the language — "transition away from fossil fuels" — came without a deadline or enforcement mechanism. This year, the issue returns via a non-binding roadmap, a format that lets producing nations avoid a consensus fight. Brazil's twin roadmaps on fossil fuel transition and deforestation will be central tests of whether the voluntary track can generate real momentum or merely diplomatic theatre. Climate finance remains the sharpest fault line. Developing countries face compounding pressures: worsening extreme weather, rising debt from higher interest rates, and shrinking overseas aid from rich nations cutting budgets. Nepal's recent access to the loss-and-damage fund — designed for communities devastated by climate disasters — illustrates both the mechanism's existence and its inadequacy. The fund exists; the money does not match the need. The gap between pledged finance and delivered finance has defined every Cop since Paris. The optimistic case rests on technology economics, not diplomacy. China's oil imports are down roughly 12% this year due to electric vehicle uptake; its renewable generation has now surpassed coal. Solar is expanding rapidly in Africa. Pakistan's rooftop solar revolution supplies about a quarter of the country's electricity. Close to half of new car sales in countries from Vietnam to some EU members are now electric. Oxford professor Jan Rosenow estimates that electrification's efficiency gains could halve global primary energy use. These are market-driven shifts that do not require consensus from 196 parties. A "coalition of the willing" — over 60 countries including the UK, EU, and dozens of developing nations — pledged earlier this year in Colombia to transition away from fossil fuels. Cop31 could expand this coalition and draw energy from recent political shifts: progressive electoral gains in Brazil, Canada, Serbia, Hungary, and US midterm states that rejected Trump. Lula's attendance, his first international visit since re-election, is expected to inject political energy into a process that often lacks it. The structural tension is clear. The formal track requires near-universal consensus, which the fossil fuel lobby and producing states can and do block. The voluntary track can move faster but lacks enforcement. Cop31's split presidency literalises this divide. Whether the action agenda can build enough momentum to drag the formal process forward — or whether the two tracks simply drift further apart — is the question that will define this fortnight.
