Tracking Negotiating Texts at the COP31 Climate Summit
An interactive tool monitors the complex progress of over 100 climate agreements in Antalya.
1Summit Negotiation Complexity
The COP31 summit in Antalya involves nearly 200 nations negotiating over 100 separate legal agreements. Diplomats work behind closed doors in the blue zone to hash out specific wording. Because of the high volume of documents, tracking the progress of these complex international climate discussions remains a significant challenge for observers.
2Digital Tracking Tool
Carbon Brief has launched a real-time interactive tracker to decode the summit agenda. This tool provides a searchable record of every document, including dates, page counts, and links to original PDFs. It allows users to monitor which issues are currently being debated and how individual negotiations are progressing throughout the event.
3Joint Leadership Structure
Turkey holds the presidency for COP31, while Australia serves as the president of negotiations. The pair intends to produce a cover text summarizing key outcomes and issues not on the official agenda. This document may address the 1.5C warming limit and a proposed target for 35% global electrification by 2035.
4Agenda Setting Fights
Parties often suggest late additions to the agenda, leading to intense negotiations before formal talks begin. The African group has requested the inclusion of climate-related trade tariffs. Other priority items include tripling adaptation finance and securing funding for the Green Climate Fund, a flagship body supporting global climate action efforts.
5Traffic Light Status
The tracker uses a traffic-light system to visualize the status of 104 substantive agenda items. Red indicates no progress, orange signifies informal drafts, and yellow denotes formal legal texts containing square brackets. These brackets represent areas of disagreement, while green indicates that all options have been resolved and consensus reached.
6Resolving Disagreements
Negotiators use bridging texts to find a landing zone between conflicting positions. When agreement remains elusive, discussions may be subject to rule 16, which postpones negotiations until the next session. These unresolved items are marked in grey, highlighting the difficulty of achieving unanimous consent among nearly 200 diverse participating nations.
7Finalizing Legal Agreements
As summits conclude, parties work to generate clean texts that contain no areas of disagreement. These documents are converted into draft decisions ready for formal adoption at the closing plenary. The COP president must then gavel these through, officially transforming the negotiated language into a binding international legal agreement.
8Historical Contextual Risks
While the final adoption is usually a formality, dramatic exceptions occur, such as the failure to adopt a fossil fuel transition deal at COP29. This underscores the volatility of the process. Tracking these texts provides essential transparency into the high-stakes diplomatic efforts required to address global climate change effectively.
Original article: Carbon Brief — Tracking Negotiating Texts at the COP31 Climate Summit