Climate Action Network (CAN) has challenged governments
heading to COP31 to turn their climate promises into
measures that create decent jobs, protect communities from
worsening disasters and expand access to affordable,
reliable and safe energy.
In its demands ahead of the
UN meeting in Antalya, CAN said governments must prove that
international cooperation can still deliver fair and
effective climate action, warning that growing conflict,
inequality and distrust in international institutions make
it more urgent than ever to fulfil promises to protect
people’s lives and livelihoods. Many of these commitments
were made at previous climate summits, and governments must
now deliver on them.
Tasneem Essop, Executive
Director of Climate Action Network International, said:
“People everywhere are saying enough. Enough of
wars, enough of watching their homes and livelihoods
destroyed, enough of governments claiming there is no money
to protect them – while finding trillions for weapons and
fossil fuel subsidies. People are demanding something better
for the sake of their very survival.
“We know
how to protect people from climate disasters, create decent
jobs and bring safe, affordable energy to communities.
Promises don’t protect people. International law and finance
do. Governments meeting in Antalya must decide whose
interests they serve. They can either keep defending a
system that is failing people and the planet, or start
delivering the protection and prosperity that people are
calling out for.”
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Genocide, war, climate breakdown
and economic insecurity are rooted in the same political and
economic system, where profit and powerful interests are
placed ahead of people and the planet. Last year, the
International Court of Justice affirmed governments’ legal
obligations to address climate change. Despite this,
millions of people continue to pay the price, while a
wealthy few profit and those most responsible for the
climate crisis too often act with impunity. COP31 is where
governments must show they will uphold their legal and
financial obligations and put justice, equity and human
rights at the heart of climate action.
To turn the
promises already made into real improvements in people’s
lives, CAN is calling for action on four priorities at
COP31:
Deliver a Belém-Antalya Mechanism
(BAM) that secures the rights of workers, young people and
communities in a Just Transition. As people
struggle with rising living costs and uncertain employment,
COP31 must establish the Just Transition Mechanism that
governments agreed to develop in Belém last year, which
civil society is calling the Belém-Antalya Mechanism (BAM).
It must help countries make a Just Transition across their
economies, creating decent jobs, protecting livelihoods and
rights, and giving workers, young people and communities a
real say in their futures. The BAM must help mobilise fair,
accessible, grant-based public finance and practical
support, and remove the barriers preventing that support
from reaching countries and communities, particularly in the
Global South.
The right to a climate-safe
world. Governments must honour their 2025
commitment to at least triple Adaptation finance by 2035,
with a credible plan to deliver at least US$120 billion a
year well before then. But tripling is only a first step.
According to UNEP’s
Adaptation Gap Report 2026, even if rich countries
deliver on that pledge, more than 70% of developing
countries’ Adaptation needs would remain unmet. This leaves
communities without adequate funding for the flood defences,
early warning systems, secure water supplies and
drought-resistant farming needed to protect lives and
livelihoods. COP31 must therefore also set out how to close
the remaining gap, with new and additional, grant-based
public finance that reaches communities and protects lives,
homes and livelihoods. When Adaptation falls short, more
lives and livelihoods are lost, and the costs of Loss and
Damage rise. Communities devastated by climate disasters
must not be left to rebuild alone. Developed countries must
fulfil their pledges to the Fund for Responding to Loss and
Damage, commit substantial new funding and urgently launch a
process to replenish it.
Empty promises don’t
protect people. Finance does. Running through all
of these demands is the question of finance. Whether
governments are supporting workers, young people and
communities through the energy transition, protecting people
from climate disasters or expanding access to renewable
electricity, their promises will mean little unless the
right finance reaches the countries and communities that
need it. The money exists, but governments must stop pouring
it into fossil fuels and war, and instead use it to protect
people – that is real security. Developed countries must
meet their obligations to provide predictable, accessible
public climate finance, prioritising grants over loans that
leave developing countries deeper in
debt.
Electrification and Mitigation must
accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.
For hundreds of millions of people, particularly in Africa,
the challenge is not replacing fossil fuels but gaining
access to electricity for the first time. COP31 must deliver
fair electrification, bringing affordable, reliable
renewable electricity to homes, schools and hospitals while
ensuring communities have a say in how energy is provided
and who benefits. Where coal, oil and gas are already used,
electrification must replace them, not simply add to growing
electricity demand. COP31 must also extend and strengthen
the Mitigation Work Programme to 2030, turning climate
commitments into real emissions cuts through clear national
plans and accountability.
Governments have made the
commitments, and many of the solutions already exist. The
test in Antalya is whether they agree on measures that make
people’s lives safer and more secure and give them greater
control over their futures, for the benefit of
all.
Note:
CAN’s Annual
Policy Document sets out the network’s key demands and
priorities for COP31, outlining the action governments must
take on Just Transition, Adaptation, climate finance, Loss
and Damage, electrification and mitigation to deliver
climate
justice.
