DeBriefed 13 November 2026: ‘Make or bake’ | Electrification push | Climate finance down 70%

This week

COP31 kicks off

NEGOTIATION NEWS: Negotiations at the COP31 climate summit got off to a relatively smooth start in Antalya, Turkey after avoiding an “agenda fight” over what should be up for discussion. As the first week drew to a close, draft texts had emerged from most of the negotiating tracks, but the most contentious issues, such as the new “climate finance work programme”, remained stalled.

COVER-TEXT TALK: A presidency move for an overarching “cover decision” faced unprecedented procedural pushback from Russia and others. Talks continued today, after the release of an initial “reflections” text – effectively a wish list of every countries’ priorities. For now, there are mentions of “responding” to “1.5C overshoot” and “welcoming” the fossil-fuel and deforestation roadmaps. A draft cover decision is due “early” next week.

ELECTRIFICATION PUSH: Another top priority for the joint Turkish-Australian presidency is a pledge for 35% of global final energy to come from electricity by 2035. So far, this has attracted few public endorsements. But Carbon Brief understands that more than 50 countries are now either firm signatories or supporters of the idea. Many countries remain on the fence. 

World leaders’ summit

‘MAKE OR BAKE’: UN secretary general António Guterres told a gathering of around 80 world leaders at COP31 that it was “make or bake time”. In one of his last addresses, Guterres said that the “brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us” and that leaders “cannot keep expanding fossil-fuel production while claiming to be committed to 1.5C”. 

LULA SPEECH: Newly re-elected Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told the world leaders’ summit that “science and multilateralism remain under attack”, adding: “The planet cannot be left at the mercy of hegemonic disputes.” Meanwhile, UK prime minister Andy Burnham, the only G7 leader to attend the summit, told leaders that electrification is “how we make clean power cheap power”.

Around the COP

• FOSSIL-FUEL ROADMAP: The Brazilian COP30 presidency formally presented its global fossil-fuel roadmap in a packed-out plenary attended by Guterres, former US climate envoy John Kerry and COP26 president Alok Sharma. COP31’s co-presidents from Australia and Turkey were not present.
• NO CHINA COP: China has decided not to bid to host COP33, which Carbon Brief understands is driven by domestic political considerations.
• FORESTS: Brazil’s controversial tropical-forest fund received only $88m in new pledges, but needs to raise $2.2bn in 49 days to meet its target for this year. 
• GRETA RETURNS: Greta Thunberg spoke at COP for the first time since the 2021 talks in Glasgow, telling journalists that climate change is “already a matter of life and death”, with “those in power here completely detached from reality”. 

Five hours

The length of time that some delegates reported spending navigating traffic and queues to get into the venue during COP31’s opening days – sparking serious access concerns.

Latest climate research

• Coal-fired power plants located within 25km of newly commissioned data centres are at a “significantly lower” risk of being retired | Nature Climate Change
• The extreme fire weather in the north-west Iberian Peninsula during August 2025 was around three times more likely due to human-caused climate change | Earth System Science Data
• Warming over Earth’s continents reached “about 90-94% of the levels expected” at the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C target | Nature Climate Change

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

More than 92,000 people registered to attend COP31, potentially making it the largest COP in history, found Carbon Brief analysis. According to the provisional participant lists, around 14,000 delegates have been registered as “host country guests” – more than 10 times the number at COP30 in Brazil last year. The analysis also revealed that the US government has again declined to send a delegation, joining Israel and Myanmar as no-shows in Antalya.

Spotlight

Climate-aid cuts hamper talks

The lack of new climate-finance pledges from developed countries – highlighted this week by new analysis from Carbon Brief – is amplifying divisions at COP31.

Developed countries are required under UN climate treaties to provide financial support for climate action in developing countries. 

A large chunk of this funding is expected to come in the form of public spending by countries such as Germany, France and Japan.

Yet, following massive cuts to foreign aid by many of the biggest climate-finance donors, only a few have come forward with new pledges ahead of COP31.

As a result, Carbon Brief analysis shows that the amount of public climate finance pledged by these nations in the coming years is around 70% lower than it was in 2025.

‘A difficult situation’

Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley cited Carbon Brief’s analysis to reprimand developed countries in an address on Wednesday, telling leaders:

”My friends, let us be clear: pledges are not payments. But even the promised pledges are now 70% below previous levels.”

NGOs at the summit also pointed to this “staggering” and “embarrassing” decline, noting that even COP31 co-president Australia had announced nothing but “hot air”.

All the biggest issues being discussed at COP31 – including adaptation, just transition and electrification – require significant investment to make them a reality.

Amid economic pressures and escalating climate disasters, developing countries argue that it is not feasible for them to undertake these actions without predictable financial support.

With the US absent from the UN climate process, there is more pressure on the remaining donors – most of which are European nations. 

Many of these countries are trying to spend more on defence, while facing domestic political pressure from far-right parties that plan to eliminate foreign-aid spending.

They are also facing significant fiscal strain. When asked about the lack of new pledges, European Commission climate-finance lead Diana Acconcia told Carbon Brief:

“It’s clear that this COP is taking place in a difficult situation regarding budgets across the world…In the EU, we are also subject to difficulties.”

Deep divides

The lack of new climate-finance pledges is contributing to friction at COP31, notably in negotiations over a new “work programme” for climate finance.

The EU and other developed countries would like to keep the focus as broad as possible, considering all the different sources of finance – including the private sector, development banks and, crucially, wealthier developing countries.

Developing countries see things differently. The G77 and China coalition wants to focus exclusively on Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which specifies that developed countries “shall provide financial resources” to developing countries.

With few firm commitments about future public finance, some parties – notably the Like-minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) – want to set up a new process that holds developed countries to account. 

They say this could include an “action plan” that ratchets up finance over time, with “burden-sharing arrangements” to identify how much funding is needed from each party.

Divisions over finance are set to spill into other negotiating tracks in the coming days. This can already be seen in early text on a proposed “cover decision” and the “global goal on adaptation” – which may or may not flesh out a target to triple adaptation finance.

Watch, read, listen

FOSSIL FUELS: For Climate Home News, Stientje van Veldhoven, Netherlands climate minister and co-host of the first transitioning away from fossil fuels conference in Santa Marta, laid out how efforts to move away from coal, oil and gas can be incorporated at COP.

DISPLACED: Drilled climate-justice reporter Nina Lakhani and photojournalist Daniele Volpe travelled to Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia to meet communities displaced by climate change.

FIRE AND FLOODS: BBC climate editor Justin Rowlatt has a Panorama episode on how climate change is fuelling extreme weather.

Coming up

• 9-20 November: UN climate summit COP31, Antalya, Turkey

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