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Cop31 : President opens UN climate summit with call to turn climate promises into action
The interconnected challenges COP31 President Kurum highlighted in his opening address will be reflected in COP31’s first thematic day, focused on food, agriculture and health. The current “Super” El Niño has the potential to push nearly 50 million additional people into acute hunger, and the day will focus on how countries can build greater resilience across the systems people depend on for their health, food and livelihoods.
COP31 opened in Antalya, Türkiye, with COP31 President Murat Kurum calling on countries to turn climate promises into practical action, as the world confronts increasingly interconnected climate, economic and geopolitical challenges.
Kurum told delegates that climate change can no longer be considered in isolation from the other pressures facing countries and communities, and that “each crisis makes the others worse.”
Conflict and geopolitical tensions, economic uncertainty and debt, food insecurity, rapid technological change and unequal access to capital and technology are unfolding alongside a world that is becoming hotter, more fragile and increasingly exposed to disasters.
Climate impacts are also crossing borders and sectors, Kurum said, with drought, flooding, water scarcity and extreme heat affecting food production, supply chains, economies, migration, cities and human health.
“A drought in one part of the world is felt at the dinner table in another,” he said.
Kurum called for COP31 to become an “Implementation COP”, focused on closing the gap between commitments made in negotiating rooms and tangible improvements in people’s lives. He pledged that the Presidency will seek to bring countries together across geopolitical and economic divides, and that “Türkiye has long served as a bridge – we are ready to take on that responsibility again.”
Kurum reaffirmed the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature increases to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as the benchmark guiding international action, saying it “remains our guide” and that at COP31
“We will be frank about what the science tells us.”
WMO State of the Climate Update 2026, released on COP31’s opening day, shows that the past 12 years have individually been the warmest on record, with the past four years being the top four.
The Belém Mission to 1.5 report, published ahead of COP31 by the COP Presidencies of Türkiye, Australia, Brazil and Azerbaijan, outlines key opportunities, barriers, and actionable solutions to keep 1.5ºC within reach and strengthen adaptation and resilience in a changing world.