COP31 Opens: Climate Promises Meet the Test of Proof
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Drawing on its longstanding relationship with the United Nations and its support for SDG 13: Climate Action, IPRA aims to foster evidence-based communication on climate change.
To help turn evidence into informed engagement, IPRA is launching a short series of updates at the start of COP31 by Isaac Aidoo, a journalist with The High Street Journal in Accra, Ghana.
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COP31 Opens: Climate Promises Meet the Test of Proof (update 1)
By Isaac Aidoo, Ghana
COP31 opens today in Antalya, Türkiye, at an uncomfortable moment for the world's climate effort. For two weeks, governments, businesses and civil society, among other environmental activists, will debate adaptation, finance, the energy transition and implementation of national climate plans.
The question that matters is no longer whether countries will make promises. It is whether those promises are bending the emissions curve, and the evidence arriving ahead of the conference is sobering.
Where the climate stands
The UN Environment Programme's Emissions Gap Report 2026, released on October 21, states plainly that the chance of holding warming below 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot is gone. If current policies continue, warming could reach 2.8°C this century. If every national climate plan, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), is delivered in full, the figure is 2.6°C, still well above the Paris Agreement's goal.
Both projections are worse than a year ago, partly because of the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and revised estimates of past emissions.
The task has therefore shifted from avoiding overshoot to limiting it. UNEP's "lowest possible" pathway would still see peak warming of 1.7°C to 1.8°C around mid-century before temperatures return to 1.5°C. It requires global emissions to fall 18% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and 69% by 2040, compared with 2025 levels. Every five years of emissions at current levels adds roughly 0.1°C to peak warming. The report also offers a measure of hope: more than 220 policy evaluations show that climate policies reduce emissions, although the successes are concentrated in particular sectors and countries.
What international climate policy has delivered
Three decades of annual COPs have produced real results. The 2015 Paris Agreement built the architecture the world still relies on: national climate plans, transparency rules, finance commitments, adaptation goals and carbon markets. Negotiations have helped lower projected warming from more than 4°C to around 2.6°C. The first Global Stocktake concluded that the world was off track and called for tripling renewable energy capacity, doubling the rate of energy efficiency improvement by 2030 and transitioning away from fossil fuels. COP30 in Belém, Brazil, reaffirmed multilateralism at a difficult time.
Two gaps persist. The ambition gap is the distance between national pledges and the goals of the Paris Agreement. The implementation gap is the distance between pledges and the policies actually put in place. UN Secretary-General António Guterres has described the emissions gap as now a leadership gap, and the world is running against time to close it.
That is why COP31 is widely seen as an accountability checkpoint. The agenda centres on whether NDCs are becoming domestic law, institutions and funded projects, how climate finance commitments are delivered, how the energy transition advances and whether countries report credible emissions data under the Enhanced Transparency Framework.
Finance and fairness: Africa's stake
Finance remains the sharpest dividing line. At COP29, governments agreed a goal of at least US$300 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2035, within a wider effort to scale funding from all sources to US$1.3 trillion annually. Yet UNEP's 2025 Adaptation Gap Report estimates that developing countries will need US$310 billion to US$365 billion a year for adaptation alone by 2035, while international public adaptation finance stood at US$26 billion in 2023.
Africa has contributed comparatively little to historical emissions, yet its communities, cities and economies are among the most exposed to climate impacts. The continent is also generating solutions in renewable energy, climate-smart agriculture, ecosystem restoration and adaptation. The test for COP31 is whether African priorities shape the outcomes and whether finance arrives as grants rather than debt, reaches farmers, local authorities and small businesses, and is reported transparently.
What it means for business, reputation and public trust
Business is not a bystander in Antalya. The Climate Action Agenda brings companies, cities and civil society together to share practical solutions, and the policy signals that emerge will influence energy markets, regulation and investment decisions for years.
As the scientific margin narrows, stakeholders will scrutinise corporate claims more closely. Statements about carbon neutrality, renewable energy and sustainable supply chains will be tested against capital spending and operational decisions. The wider the gap between what is said and what is delivered, the greater the risk of greenwashing accusations and lost trust. Reputation must follow performance, not substitute for it.
Health at the heart of the climate conversation
The link between climate and health is not new. Malaria follows the rains, cholera follows the floods, and hunger follows the droughts. Africa’s clinics have been treating the consequences for years. What has changed is the scale and the speed: new disease patterns, repeated extreme weather and food insecurity are now stretching communities, health systems and the businesses that depend on both.
Corazon Aquino, Partnership Director at Amref Health Africa, said the issue featured at the 81st UN General Assembly, where talks included preparedness for the anticipated El Niño season. “These conversations are only the beginning,” she said, describing them as the first step in a new partnership between Amref Health Africa and Healthcare Without Harm.
Africa, she said, “must not only respond to the climate crisis but help shape the solutions, investments, and partnerships that will define a healthier future for the continent,” pointing to COP32 in Addis Ababa as the next opportunity to raise African priorities.
What to watch in Antalya
Four questions will signal whether COP31 moves the world from pledging to proving. Are NDCs backed by measurable implementation? Does climate finance arrive on time, on fair terms and with transparent reporting? Do negotiators set clearer, quantified targets for 2035 and 2040, as UNEP recommends? And do countries and companies publish evidence that others can verify?
No single COP can close the emissions gap. But Antalya can decide whether the world treats the gap as a leadership failure to be corrected or as a familiar cycle of ambition followed by delay.
What are the main developments at COP31 and what do the results mean? Will the world be able to make much-needed progress for climate action? Watch out for the next update in a few days!
And join global PR peers on 24 November for COP31 IPRA Debrief: Climate Change, Business and Communication – an African Perspective. Register free today and secure your place: REGISTER HERE
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