From Belém to Antalya: The Legacy of COP30 and the Road to COP31

In November 2026, Turkey will host COP31 in Antalya. It will be the first UN climate summit ever held in the country, under a novel partnership in which Turkey holds the Presidency and leads the Action Agenda while Australia presides over the negotiations. COP31 convenes at a difficult moment for international cooperation: wars and deepening geopolitical tensions are straining the multilateral system, while major economies are rolling back climate policies, environmental regulations, and finance commitments. In this context, the UN process remains one of the few spaces where collective climate action is still negotiated, though under growing pressures.

What Antalya inherits is largely defined by what happened in Belém: COP30 was framed as the "COP of implementation," introducing innovations such as the Mobilization Circles, the Global Ethical Stocktake, a reformed Action Agenda, the Global Implementation Accelerator, and voluntary roadmaps on transitioning away from fossil fuels and on halting deforestation. All this happened alongside a Peoples' Summit and unprecedented social mobilization outside the negotiation halls.

This opening webinar of our series "On the road to Antalya" takes stock of Belém and looks ahead to Antalya, while also offering an accessible overview of the bigger picture: how the UNFCCC process works, where climate multilateralism stands today, and what is genuinely at stake in the negotiations. Marilia Closs from Plataforma CIPÓ, the Brazil-based think tank that closely followed the COP30 process, will assess the legacy of the Brazilian presidency—its achievements, its limits, and the "two-tier" model of climate multilateralism it put forward. Prof. Semra Cerit Mazlum, who has followed the UNFCCC negotiations for many years, will reflect on the state of the climate regime as a whole, as well as what hosting COP31 means for Turkey: the responsibilities of the Presidency, Turkey's own climate policy, and the opportunities and challenges for civil society.
The webinar will be held online with simultaneous Turkish–English interpretation and will conclude with an open Q&A.

Participants:

Moderatör: Dawid D. Bartelt

Speakers:

Prof. Semra Cerit Mazlum, Department of Political Science and International Relations in Marmara University

Semra Cerit Mazlum is a professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations in Marmara University, Istanbul. She holds her PhD in Urban and Environmental Studies from Ankara University. Dr. Cerit Mazlum is specialized in environmental politics and policy, global environmental politics, global climate change politics, Turkey’s climate change policy, sustainable development and environmental NGOs. She has published extensively on Turkey’s climate change and environmental policies. She has two co-edited books: International Environmental Regimes (in Turkish, 2017) and Civil Society and Foreign Policy: New Issues, New Actors (in Turkish, 2006) and published articles and book chapters. She has taught graduate and postgraduate level courses on environmental politics, environmental policy, global environmental politics, sustainable development and public administration. She has worked in several projects of governmental institutions and NGOs (with international and national support) on climate change with outcomes as written reports and training material. She has conducted trainings on several aspects of climate change including international climate change policy, women and climate change, and women’s participation in local governments.

Marília Closs, Project coordinator, Plataforma CIPÓ

Holds a PhD and a master's degree in Political Science from the Institute of Social and Political Studies at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (IESP-UERJ). She holds a BA in International Relations from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). Marília is also researcher at the South American Political Observatory (OPSA) and the Center for Studies in Social Theory and Latin America (NETSAL). Since 2019, she has been working with climate, environment, and international politics in third-sector organizations and in support of the public sector.

Translator & Language: Barış Yıldırım, English