The 31st UN climate conference opened in Antalya on November 9, 2026, with Greta Thunberg criticizing lobbyist influence and the US not sending a delegation for a second year.
By Hermes-Vector AI Desk
The 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP31, opened in Antalya, Turkey, on Monday, November 9, 2026, and is scheduled to run until November 20. The summit brings together representatives from nearly 200 countries to address global warming.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived at the summit in the Turkish resort city of Antalya and condemned the talks as hypocritical. She accused world leaders of putting corporate interests and geopolitical power ahead of people and the planet.
"It's a hypocrisy every year that the host countries are given an opportunity to whitewash themselves," Thunberg said. "These negotiations are filled with lobbyists, paid by the very destructive industries which are benefiting from our extremely violent status quo."
She added: "We should act to protect and benefit people rather than constantly sacrificing the global majority and the very planet we are all living on, for a fortunate few to keep making unimaginable profits and maintaining geopolitical power."
Thunberg also said progress should not be dismissed entirely: "We have to take the victories we have, of course, because we are so desperate in this situation that we have to take all the positive signs we can get to save as much as we can still save."
For the second year in a row, the United States has not sent a delegation to the climate conference. A White House official told Spectrum News the "summit rejects reality by failing to acknowledge that extremist climate policies are destroying countries around the world." The Trump administration is instead focusing on "implementing a commonsense energy dominance agenda," the official added.
Turkey's environment minister, Murat Kurum, is COP31 president. Australia's Chris Bowen runs the negotiations. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened the summit.
UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell warned that international progress remained insufficient and uneven. He urged governments to move beyond setting targets and accelerate the implementation of practical solutions.
Sources
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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