COP31: Governments must deliver on climate justice as global crises deepen

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.”

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.

Climate Action Network (CAN) is the world’s largest climate network made up of more than 2500 civil society organisations in over 130 countries, together fighting the climate crisis. Since its inception in the 1980s, CAN has grown into a strong, member-driven network with a membership spanning all six continents in over 130 countries.