The leaders' summit of the COP31 climate conference opened in Antalya, Turkiye, on Wednesday, 11 November 2026, with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warning world leaders that the climate crisis is outrunning the world's response. The two-day high-level segment brings heads of state and government together in the middle of the two-week conference, which runs until 20 November.

Guterres told dozens of leaders gathered at the Antalya Expo Center that the slow international response had placed the world on a path to destruction. He urged governments to end what he called the fossil fuel addiction and to tax the windfall profits of oil companies.

Guterres: fossil fuels must go the way of the dinosaurs

"The brutal truth is that the climate crisis is outrunning us," Guterres said. "This is the path to mutually assured destruction." He accused oil and gas interests of blocking climate action, saying fossil fuels "must go the way of the dinosaurs, but that won't happen on its own. The dinosaurs did not have a lobby, but fossil fuels do."

"Their strategy is simple: distort the science, delay the policy, delay the action, delay the accountability," he said to sustained applause. "It's time to kick the habit and end the fossil fuel addiction."

The summit is Guterres's final COP before his term as secretary-general ends in December. He has made the fight against climate change a central issue since taking office in 2017.

Electrification at the centre of the Turkish presidency

Host country Turkiye is promoting a voluntary initiative to accelerate the electrification of transport, buildings and industry, with the aim of increasing electricity's share of global energy consumption to 35 percent by 2035, up from a little over a fifth now. Negotiators are also seeking progress on the transition away from fossil fuels agreed for the first time in 2023, on which countries have since struggled to make headway.

The European Union has stressed that electrification must be clean, potentially setting up a debate over the role of oil, gas and coal in the Turkish proposal. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the world needed a fair energy transition that took into account the energy security and different development needs of different countries.

Organisers expect 102 leaders from 95 countries to attend the summit. Turkish President Erdogan and Guterres addressed the opening session, and heads of state and government will deliver national statements over two days, alongside roundtables and bilateral meetings.

Who is speaking, and who is missing

Wednesday's speakers were expected to include Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Chinese Vice-President Han Zheng and Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine. Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian was also due to speak, and said before departing for Turkiye that he would use the summit to highlight environmental destruction caused by war.

Lula, re-elected at the end of October, told fellow leaders that climate change had disappeared from speeches and documents from global leadership. "We've turned to talking more about arms and tariffs than the survival of future generations," he said, adding: "Brazil is back to defend the continuity of a healthy planet."

Several prominent figures are absent. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham is the only leader from a G7 country scheduled to address the summit. French President Emmanuel Macron is not attending because 11 November is Armistice Day and he will attend an EU summit in Ireland on Thursday. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are also skipping the event, as are Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

The United States, the world's largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, has not sent officials to the climate talks since President Donald Trump returned to office and withdrew the US from climate cooperation.

Low expectations in Antalya

Few major breakthroughs are expected at the negotiations, which run until 20 November, as countries grapple with an oil price shock and geopolitical tensions fuelled by the US conflict with Iran and Russia's war in Ukraine. A UN report published last month found the world on course to break through the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit agreed under the Paris Agreement.

"It is a shame that some of the bigger European leaders aren't coming. We need Europe to be showing up strongly at this COP," Cosima Cassel, a climate diplomacy expert at the think tank E3G, told Agence France-Presse. Wopke Hoekstra, the EU's climate commissioner, said the absences were not completely atypical, but added that expectations were not necessarily high for this year's conference.

The talks opened on Monday against the backdrop of a year of searing heatwaves and wildfires in Europe and deadly floods in Nepal.