COP31: Deadlock or progress on climate finance?

Yet another COP at which climate finance will, at least in part, set the agenda. Once again, it is likely to prove difficult, given the decline in development aid funding and the lack of willingness on the part of industrialised nations to make new commitments.

Negotiations on the further implementation of the Paris Agreement began today at the UN Climate Change Conference COP31 in Antalya, Turkey, and will continue for two weeks. Alongside the phase-out of fossil fuels and the electrification of energy consumption, the key issue will once again be financial support for low-income countries. There is a risk of deadlock as early as the first day, but progress is also possible – in five critical areas. An overview.

The year 2026 is not yet over, but there are already signs that it will be declared the warmest year on record globally since weather records began. The consequences are being felt everywhere: catastrophic floods in Nepal, devastating forest fires in France and Spain, and severe typhoons in the Pacific. It is now considered certain that global warming will, at least temporarily, exceed the crucial 1.5°C threshold set out in the Paris Agreement. A key task at this year’s UN Climate Change Conference, COP31, will therefore be to further accelerate the phase-out of fossil fuels – a move that has, in principle, already been agreed – including through the proposed target of meeting at least 35 per cent of global energy consumption with electricity by 2035 – which, of course, must come from renewable sources. This can only succeed if significantly more support is mobilised for the Global South. Climate finance will therefore once again play a key role at this year’s conference.

New long-term commitments: Probably none

The European Union (EU) made it clear even before the conference that no climate finance pledges should be expected and that it would block any new commitments in this regard at COP31. This is not a helpful stance, as low-income countries rightly criticise the fact that the target agreed at COP29 – to increase support to at least 300 billion US dollars annually by 2035 (up from 136.7 billion US dollars in 2024) – is scarcely underpinned, particularly with regard to the plans for support from rich industrialised nations. Their previous commitments were calibrated to the previous US$100 billion target and therefore expired in 2025 (and, in Germany’s case, were not even met). Now would actually be the time to update the existing pledges and set out how the respective financial support from industrialised nations is to develop in the coming years in order to make a fair contribution to the implementation of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) – as also called for in an open letter from almost 150 civil society organisations worldwide. So far, hardly any country has complied with this demand, and there is reason to fear that this will not change at COP31 either. The very least that COP31 should therefore decide on in this matter would be to call on the rich industrialised nations to develop these individual commitments in the coming year and then announce them in good time for COP32.

In this context, it will be interesting to see whether and how the multilateral development banks (MDBs) will comment at COP31 on their existing joint target of increasing their climate finance to US$120 billion annually by 2030 and mobilising a further US$65 billion annually in private funds. At the instigation of the US government, the World Bank had abandoned its target of allocating 45 per cent of its funds to climate-related measures; other banks are under similar pressure. This could jeopardise the joint target.

At COP31, there will likely be individual pledges to some of the multilateral climate funds, such as the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF) or the Adaptation Fund (AF). Both funds are doing successful work, but suffer from chronic underfunding and are now barely able (AF) or no longer able at all (LDCF) to approve new programmes. Germany has contributed regularly to both funds in recent years. However, due to the German government’s ill-advised cuts to development cooperation, only modest pledges from Germany are to be expected at COP31 at best, which will do little to bolster trust with low-income countries.

Climate Finance Work Programme

Worldwide (and particularly in Germany), development cooperation funding is being cut (2025: down 23 per cent compared to 2024). At the same time, industrialised countries are promoting the mobilisation of private investment, relying on the expansion of lending – particularly through MDBs – and constantly calling for the donor base to be broadened. Developing countries are right to fear that, despite international agreements, they may not be able to rely much on the rich industrialised countries to provide adequate public support in future. Consequently, last year they called for formal negotiations on the implementation of the industrialised countries’ support obligation, as set out in Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement. This did not take place. Instead, COP30 agreed on a (ultimately non-binding) work programme on climate finance.

Ahead of COP31, the developing countries are now unanimously calling for a decision to be taken, at the very least, on the scope and modalities of this work programme, given that the initial activities under the work programme had proved more than unsatisfactory in the run-up to the Bonn interim conference SB64 (in June 2025). The developed countries are opposed to this in principle and on formal grounds – a rather unhelpful stance, as an agreement on the further course of the work programme seems more than sensible. This could provide an opportunity to clarify the purpose and objectives of the work programme and, in particular, to agree on which issues to examine in greater detail, including, first and foremost, the aforementioned support obligation under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, the implementation of all components of the NCQG decision, the promised tripling of funding for adaptation, the future support for coping with unavoidable climate-related Loss and Damage, and options for new sources of funding, such as taxes and levies on the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies or on extreme wealth.

Tripling adaptation funding?

The aforementioned tripling of support is likely (as is the Climate Finance Work Programme) to cause controversy as early as the adoption of the agenda. The target was agreed at COP30 last year, though without setting a base year or providing clarity on its implementation. The African Group has now called for the tripling to be placed on the conference agenda, with resistance from industrialised nations to be expected.

It is clear that support for adaptation to climate change falls far short of the needs of developing countries. A few days ago, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) presented its annual Adaptation Gap Report 2026. According to the report, developing countries’ adaptation needs will rise to US$305 billion annually by 2035 – or US$420 billion when expected inflation is taken into account. By contrast, in 2024, public support from developed countries for adaptation to climate change in low-income countries stood at US$28–32 billion. This means that developed countries are not even on track to meeting the target set in 2021 of initially doubling support to around US$40 billion by 2025. The outlook is no better for the tripling of funding by 2035, which was agreed last year. Depending on the base year, such a tripling would amount to between US$60 billion (base year 2019, as for the doubling) and US$120 billion (base year 2025, assuming the doubling is achieved). Even in the best-case scenario, therefore, the tripling by 2035 would cover less than a third of the demand.

It is understandable that African countries would wish to discuss this at COP31. It is, however, hardly surprising that the industrialised nations would like to remove the issue from the agenda. If this stance does not change in the opening hours of COP31, it is likely to poison the negotiations on adaptation (such as the implementation of the Global Adaptation Goal) and, indirectly, the rest of the negotiations as well. It is therefore to be hoped that the European Union and the other developed countries will show a willingness early on to at least discuss the tripling target and its implementation.

Removing barriers to access

A recurring point of discussion at the annual climate conferences is the difficulties faced by many low-income countries when seeking to access available funds. Bureaucratic hurdles, a maze of funding procedures across numerous institutions and funds, and the often limited institutional capacity of many countries frequently stand in the way of financing, even when the money is, in principle, available. To remedy this, Australia – which is chairing the formal negotiations for COP31 – has developed and launched an ‘Access to Finance Statement’ (with an action plan) in the run-up to COP31. This is intended to make access to climate finance easier and less complicated. The statement falls outside the formal negotiating agenda and will therefore ultimately be a purely voluntary initiative by interested states and stakeholders.

While the latest drafts of the statement contained a number of sensible points and insights, they were rather lacking in terms of binding measures and do little to inspire confidence that the statement or the action plan will have a significant impact. There is also a risk that the initiative in Antalya will be hailed as a success, while progress on the crucial issues (relating to Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement or the tripling of support for adaptation) could be blocked. In any case, the action plan still lacks concrete measures – though this could yet change, as it is understood that Australia is still working on a final version.

Adaptation Fund: Transfer to the Paris Agreement

Finally, it is to be hoped that COP31 will at last succeed (having failed to do so at COP30) in completing the transfer of the Adaptation Fund to the Paris Agreement. The Fund, which was established under the Kyoto Protocol, is to operate exclusively under the Paris Agreement in future. To this end, its institutional architecture must be adapted at least to the extent that it does not contradict the provisions of the Paris Agreement and that the planned financing of the Fund can be set in motion via a levy on proceeds relating to activities under Article 6.4 of the Paris Agreement.

The technical aspects themselves have been clarified; what remains is the possible adjustment to the composition of the Adaptation Fund Board. According to industrialised countries this should be brought into line with the terminology of the Paris Agreement. Two of the sixteen seats are earmarked for Annex 1 countries and two for non-Annex 1 countries respectively. These terms originate from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); the Paris Agreement does not use these country lists and refers generally to ‘developed countries’ and ‘developing countries’. The developed countries would like to replace the existing terms accordingly. This is not strictly necessary, and many developing countries are opposed to it, partly because they see it as a manoeuvre by the rich industrialised nations to take a (albeit small) step away from their financial obligations. The dispute has been ongoing for years – it would be desirable for COP31 to finally resolve it.

Jan Kowalzig, Oxfam