The 31st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31) opens tomorrow, November 9, in Antalya, Türkiye. Türkiye is hosting the conference for the first time. The 12-day event will bring together delegations from 196 countries and the European Union. According to Türkiye’s Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, preparations for the venue have been completed.
Leaders from 102 countries and more than 300 ministers have already confirmed their participation. The leaders’ summit will take place on November 11–12 in the “blue zone” and will be hosted by Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Representatives of the United Nations, the UN General Assembly, the UN Development Programme, the European Commission, the World Bank, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the International Energy Agency will also attend the Antalya meeting at senior level.
More than 45,000 volunteers from 154 countries have been accredited to work at the summit. Official negotiations will take place in the “blue zone,” which covers 527,000 square meters and operates under UN management; around 100,000 people are expected to visit it. The “green zone,” covering 582,000 square meters and open to business, academia and civil society, is expected to receive 1.5 million visitors.
A 100 MW reactor and a focus on clean energy
Energy will be one of the conference’s main topics. “The transition to clean energy and electrification” is among the 10 priorities of the COP31 action agenda, while November 10 will be dedicated to energy and transport in the “green zone.” COP31 President and Türkiye’s Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Murat Kurum has pledged that Türkiye will share its energy-transition experience with the world.
At the summit, Turkish company MİA Teknoloji will present a 100 MW small modular reactor (SMR) project it is developing in a strategic partnership with China’s JHATOM and GlobalX. Turkish participation in the project is expected to exceed 50%. The company will bring a reactor model to Antalya and hold technical presentations for government bodies, energy companies, industrialists and digital-infrastructure operators.
The project is based on the JH-100 pressurized water reactor, which has an integral design: the core and the main components of the primary circuit are housed in a single vessel. According to the developer, the facility is designed to generate approximately 100 MW of electricity and operate for 60 years, while natural circulation and passive safety systems reduce its dependence on external power and operator action. Such reactors are being considered for data centers and industrial facilities that require uninterrupted low-carbon energy. Türkiye, where Rosatom is building the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, plans to increase its nuclear generation capacity to 20,000 MW by 2050, with small modular reactors expected to account for 5,000 MW.
A drone guards the summit
Security measures have been strengthened in Antalya. The provincial police department has added a Uçbey VTOL vertical-takeoff-and-landing drone to its fleet, and the aircraft will be used throughout the conference. The police said its aerial-surveillance capabilities would enable monitoring of large areas and strengthen security forces’ control over conditions on the ground.
Antalya police video shows the assembly of the Uçbey drone in a field, a police drone operator preparing for takeoff and the aircraft flying over the province’s rural areas.
Kurum calls it an “implementation conference”
Murat Kurum, who heads Türkiye’s COP31 presidency, said in an interview with TRT Haber that he would join all COP presidents in addressing the press with a joint call for peace, describing it as the first such instance in COP history. He said decisions from previous conferences had not been implemented and that achieving the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree target “frankly appears difficult.”
For that reason, Ankara calls COP31 an “implementation conference.” “The event in Antalya will conclude on November 20, but when the world leaves Antalya, everyone should be able to say: yes, something changed in Antalya,” Kurum said. Türkiye will also present its experience in building 455,000 homes in 11 provinces after the February 6 earthquakes. According to the minister, the homes are disaster-resilient, built with insulation and according to a zero-waste principle, and generate their own energy.
In a video posted by Kurum, an elderly couple drives a tractor through fields beneath the caption “COP31 is on everyone’s lips and on the global agenda.” The first day of the conference, November 9, will focus on food, agriculture and health in the “green zone.”
Photo: COP31 Türkiye. Video: Antalya police, Murat Kurum (X)
