A second set of world leaders give their speeches on Thursday before heading out of town and leaving their negotiators to it. After around 40 leaders spoke on Wednesday, today there will be just 25 or so including the UK’s Andy Burnham, Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez and Bangladesh’s Tarique Rahman.

But Brazil’s President Lula is still there and is expected to keep grabbing headlines, along with California’s Governor – and maybe next US president – Gavin Newsom – and Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg who has lost none of her star power, if the crowd around her in the press centre was anything to go by.

We’ll bring you highlights through the day on issues ranging from finance to methane, and update you on a pledging event for the Pacific Resilience Facility, which the climate-vulnerable region is relying on to keep small island nations as safe as possible in the face of intensifying storms, drought and sea level rise.

The post COP31 Bulletin Day 4: Burnham speaks with UK climate policy under fire appeared first on Climate Home News.

COP31 Bulletin Day 4: Burnham speaks with UK climate policy under fire

ANTALYA, Türkiye, Wednesday 11 November 2026  — In response to Prime Minister Albanese’s COP31 Leaders’ Summit address, Dr Susie Byers, Head of Advocacy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, speaking from Antalya said:

“Prime Minister Albanese’s Leaders’ Summit address emphasised the power and clarity of Pacific climate leadership and that we must all fight to return warming to below 1.5°C. To inject the momentum these talks critically need, Australia must lead by example.

“Australia takes the reins of the COP31 talks at a critical moment where global instability can spark transformative change, or entrench more of the same inaction and paper pledges. Australia must pull all available levers over the next two weeks, taking the baton from Brazil and sprinting forward.

“The world’s most important job in Antalya is to deliver tangible action to end the fossil fuel era. Communities in Australia, the Pacific and around the world who are grappling with climate disasters and a cost of living crisis need concrete dates and credible plans. We know the transition is coming, one way or another. Our Government has a responsibility to make a plan for this change, which is based on the best available science, and a commitment to put people, energy security and our environment ahead of fossil fuel profits.

“In his address, UN climate chief Guterres told leaders to “tell the truth”. Prime Minister Albanese told an important truth today: that we all have solemn responsibilities to return warming to below 1.5°C. We also know that the best way for Australia to lead through this summit is to start by making its own commitments to turn the temperature down, by stopping developing and exporting fossil fuels.

“Australia’s domestic progress on renewables, and the ‘35 by 35’ electrification goal, are welcome and important. Now we must ensure electricity comes from clean, renewable sources that actually displace fossil fuels and align with the science of 1.5°C.

“The pressure on Australia is building. COP31 must deliver real action to advance multilateral climate cooperation, accelerate the just transition away from fossil fuels, and advance Pacific priorities — including significantly scaling-up climate finance and keeping 1.5°C alive.”

ENDS

COP31 images and video available here in Greenpeace Media Library

Media contact: Kate O’Callaghan in Antalya (GMT+3) on +61 406 231 892 (Whatsapp/Signal)

Australia must ‘pull all available levers’ to deliver fossil fuel phase out, following Albanese’s COP31 address

Confusion reigned in Antalya on Wednesday morning as some delegates heeded the Turkish organisers’ warning to get to the COP31 venue before 7am today. Others saw a later UN clarification that this wasn’t necessary, and many more decided not to chance it and work from their hotel rooms.

Additional restrictions seem to have been put in place so that the 40 or so world leaders due to speak could be ferried from the airport to the venue and so that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could plant some symbolic olive trees without ordinary COP delegates ruining the photo op.

The list of world leaders speaking today is considerably shorter than the (already short) list from just six days ago, with the leaders of Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, the Netherlands and Sweden among those dropping out.

Still on there are the co-hosts Erdoğan and Australia’s Albanese plus Brazil’s recently re-elected President Lula and the European Commission head Ursula Von der Leyen. The leader of rainforest-rich DR Congo and the vice president of clean energy and coal superpower China will also speak, as well Barbados’s Mia Mottley and Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Abdulaziz bin Salman.

While the leaders of big-emitting countries have not turned up, there will be plenty of voices from the frontlines of climate change with heads of government from desertifying Mauritania, water-stressed Iraq, the sinking Marshall Islands and drought-hit Somalia all speaking.

Today is also “Zero Waste” Day, with First Lady Emine Erdoğan holding an afternoon roundtable on her pet topic. Before COP, Climate Home News visited a landfill and zero waste education centre in Ankara to find out how well – or otherwise – Türkiye is doing in its pursuit of waste reduction.

Türkiye pushes “zero waste” at COP31, but is it delivering at home?

We’re watching out for any news on the country’s single-use plastics ban, which has been introduced to parliament but not yet – after some lobbying from the plastics industry – got the president’s signature.

The post COP31 Bulletin Day 3: With the people stuck outside, world leaders jet in appeared first on Climate Home News.

COP31 Bulletin Day 3: With the people stuck outside, world leaders jet in