Keeping Promises: COP31 Update #3
As world leaders arrived in Antalya, the question across the venue was whether promises already made will be kept.
The Antalya Leaders’ Summit opened on November 11 with about 40 heads of state and government due to speak. Roads closed for motorcades. After organizers first urged delegates to arrive by 7 a.m. and the UN later said that was unnecessary, many participants worked from their hotels instead. Our team, in Antalya and online, followed sessions on fossil fuel roadmaps, the ocean and international law, early warnings, women’s leadership and satellite checks on countries’ emissions. A thread ran through many of them: the commitments exist, and the work now is to deliver and verify them.
Leaders take the stage
Opening the Leaders’ Summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said clean energy is now the most affordable option in most of the world, yet “fossil fuel interests keep making a killing, while killing our planet.” He closed with a message to young people, scientists, Indigenous Peoples, civil society and small island states: “You are the conscience of this struggle.”
Brazil’s President Lula said momentum from COP30 has faded and that wealthy nations must honor their finance commitments to developing countries. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen backed the presidency’s pledge to raise electricity’s share of global energy use to 35% by 2035. The Maldives’ President Mohamed Muizzu asked for finance that is grant-based rather than loans, so vulnerable countries do not have to borrow their way out of a crisis they did little to cause.
Forests. Governments and philanthropies added money to the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which pays countries to keep forests standing. The Netherlands announced $500 million over 10 years, Indonesia reaffirmed its $1 billion, and a coalition of philanthropies committed $88 million.
Early warnings. Guterres restated the goal of early warning coverage for every person on Earth by 2027. Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr. noted that only 43% of small island nations have early warning systems, adding, “Early warning cannot replace ambitious climate action.”
In the negotiating rooms. Talks on Action for Climate Empowerment, the UN’s work on climate education and public participation, moved line by line through a draft work plan. Parties debated whether national focal points should act “as appropriate” or “as mandated,” and the chair proposed adding persons with disabilities to a planned high-level event on climate education for children and youth.
From roadmaps to real plans
A day after Brazil presented its global roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels, Finland launched its own national roadmap, joined by Germany and the Netherlands. Each started from a different place. Finland has cut fossil fuels’ share of its energy mix from about 45% in 2010 to 26%, largely through carbon pricing and nuclear power. The Netherlands already has fully decarbonized electricity, yet 80% of its total energy still comes from fossil fuels, with gas the hardest part to replace.
Germany’s State Secretary Thomas Kralinski described income-based support that helps lower-income families buy electric vehicles and heat pumps, so the transition does not leave them behind. “A roadmap away from something must also lead toward something,” he said: jobs, new industries and protection from price shocks. Speakers agreed that honesty about costs matters more than optimism. Countries now drafting roadmaps can get support through the follow-up to the Santa Marta conference and the Beyond Oil & Gas Alliance.
At a WWF event, “From Santa Marta to Tuvalu,” panelists including Tuvalu’s climate minister, Maina Vakafua Talia, set out the gaps national plans still have to close. Nothing yet limits fossil fuel production, and finance falls far short of the $5–6.8 trillion needed by 2030. Grids alone need about $1 trillion a year to meet the 35-by-35 electrification goal, and private capital for clean energy in Africa remains around $3 billion a year. African speakers argued the transition must be built with the continent, not shipped to it: a solar plant that trains no local workers leaves behind an asset, not lasting change.
The ocean has the law on its side
Two international courts have now spoken on climate change and the ocean, and a WWF panel asked why negotiators are not using what they said. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea found that greenhouse gas emissions count as marine pollution under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The International Court of Justice reinforced states’ duty to prevent harm to the marine environment and linked it to human rights. Panelists called for oceans to appear in countries’ national climate plans and for adaptation finance to reach coastal communities directly. A speaker from the Pacific put it simply: “Climate finance is ocean finance.”
The stakes were concrete. Coral reefs cover less than 1% of the sea floor but support about a quarter of marine life, and up to 99% of corals could be lost at 2°C of warming. Warmer water holds less oxygen, and tuna stocks that Pacific economies depend on are moving away from their waters. Speakers welcomed the entry into force this year of the High Seas Treaty, the first binding agreement to protect biodiversity in the two-thirds of the ocean beyond any country’s jurisdiction.
Adil Najam, President of WWF International, said the panel was “being too polite.” The courts, he argued, have told governments two things: listen to the science, and keep the promises you made. “There is no ocean and forest and biodiversity. There is nature. I am nature, you are nature,” he said. “Don’t give me another promise, show me what’s happening out there.”
Women at the frontline
At a side event on women leading climate action in Africa and the Arab region, speakers described how conflict and climate change compound each other. Malkia John of Young Women for Climate Justice said women in her part of Kenya walk about 10 kilometers for water. They spend over four and a half hours a day on care work, against just over an hour for men. The Kuwait Environment Protection Society recalled the oil fires of 1991. The day the last one was put out, November 6, is now the UN’s International Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War and Armed Conflict, marking its 25th year. Speakers asked that climate finance go directly to local women’s initiatives and that women have a seat in post-conflict environmental recovery.
Checking the numbers from space
The Paris Agreement relies on countries reporting their own emissions. The European Space Agency (ESA) showed how satellites can check those reports independently. By August 2026, 136 of 198 Parties had submitted their first transparency reports under the agreement, but only about a third use satellite data to prepare them. The comparisons can reveal what official figures miss. Satellite-based estimates suggest China’s land carbon sink has weakened since 2022, which its inventory does not show. In Brazil, land swings from a weak carbon sink in wet years to a strong source in heavy fire years such as 2019 and 2024, when fires drove record forest loss. In Italy, measured emissions of one potent industrial gas were consistently higher than reported. Data from ESA’s Copernicus satellites is free and open to all, giving governments, researchers and civil society a way to hold reported numbers to account.
Where the church comes in
Keeping one’s word is not a new idea for the church. The courts now say the same of governments: commitments made must be kept. United Methodists can help by asking their own governments what they have actually delivered on climate finance, fossil fuel plans and protection for coastal communities. They can also support tools like independent emissions checks that make those answers verifiable. The day also showed who carries the weight when promises fall short. The Social Principles call for women’s equal treatment and full participation in decision-making. That call speaks directly to the women in Kenya, Lebanon and Kuwait who are leading climate responses without a seat at the table where funding is decided. United Methodists in coastal communities from the Philippines to West Africa and the Pacific live with the ocean changes the courts addressed. Congregations in Europe and the United States can press for finance that reaches those communities directly.
Follow our updates throughout COP31, share them with your congregation, and hold in prayer those working to turn commitments into action.
