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And The 8 of CMA. The 3rd meeting of COP 31. And the 3rd meeting of CMI8.

I hereby open the common meeting of distinguished delegates. Thank you.

In line with the spirit of the partnership between Turkey and Australia.

I now would like to mention that I am quite pleased that Chris Bowen, the President of negotiations,

is accompanying me on the podium, and we have our distinguished guests with us in the afternoon, Mr. Dr.

Kola Rahman and World Meteorology Organization Secretary Professor Celeste Cardona. And distinguished delegates.

It is my pleasure to invite the Executive Secretary of the United Nations,

Climate Change Secretariat, Simon Stiell, to address the plenary. Executive secretary, you have the floor.

Excellencies, the security of every one of your nations depends on climate action.

And International climate cooperation with national efforts is delivering, driving down the global temperature rise from well over 4 degrees,

a death sentence for every economy, to around 2.6 degrees today.

Cooperation has helped move adaptation from the margins to the mainstream. And unleash an energy revolution. Clean energy investment now outstrips fossil fuels. But action is not yet fast enough. The science demands we drastically pace up. And it's not yet fair enough. The benefits have not been shared equally.

Nations need far more support, particularly the most vulnerable,

who have done practically nothing to cause the crisis.

We must bring more benefits to more people much faster.

Today, chaos in global energy markets and climate disasters are supercharging inflation,

slamming government budgets, pushing household bills up and living standards down.

The political costs of fossil fuel dependency are unforgiving. Climate action can help relieve the pressure.

Clean energy means secure energy and more sustainable and stable economies,

protected from fossil fuel volatility.

Building resilience to disasters protects your people and strengthens the global supply chains on which every economy depends for low inflation growth.

Climate justice and respect for science are both foundational.

So I sincerely thank the Secretary General for his unflinching voice and his tireless service for all people,

prosperity and our planet.

We have global commitments on finance, the energy transition, adaptation and more.

Your countries have national climate action plans, blueprints for jobs and growth.

At this COP, we're going to be working differently,

focusing on helping to convert these targets and plans into practical solutions.

Solutions that deliver real economy results, ease pressures and change lives.

Electrifying every economy, tripling finance for adaptation,

and delivering and improving access to finance without reopening previous agreements.

We're working on two tracks, the negotiations and the global climate action agenda,

which brings the real economy closer to this process.

So please tell your ministers we cannot leave Antalya without a strong negotiated outcome or meaningful results on the action agenda.

This is a chance to bank the benefits of climate action. It's up to you to take it. So now let's get to work. I thank you. Executive Secretary.

It is my distinct pleasure to invite His Excellency Doctor Saifur Rahman,

President of the United Nations General Assembly, to address to the plenary. Your Excellency, you have the floor. Mr. President Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. The clock is ticking.

Last year, Total carbon emissions hit a record 42 billion tons.

The 12 warmest Years ever recorded are the last 12. Paris promised 1.5 degrees.

And here we are on track for 2.8. This is not a gap. It's a chasm. And people are falling into it. Every day.

The only way to close it is to deliver.

On our commitments It is therefore very timely that the focus of this conference is on implementation.

I thank President Erdoğan and the people and government of Turkey for welcoming us in Antalya. And I thank you, Mr. President.

For leading this conference and Minister Cohen of Australia for steering the negotiations.

As we move from climate ambition to implementation and action, we are not starting from scratch. Paris gave us a compass. The UAE consensus gave us a direction.

And Takupakaswa Declaration gave us the islands and Pacific's voice. Antalya must now give us delivery.

Let me offer 3 tests for the days ahead.

First, our ambition must translate into concrete results.

New nationally determined contributions are on the table. Fund them, measure them, deliver them.

Science demands emission cuts of 45% by 2035.

Triling renewables means we should add some 1200 gigawatts every year,

not someday, now.

Decarbonisation must remain our ultimate priority as it affords us the only viable path to reduce emissions and rein in temperature rise.

We should advance a just transition away from fossil fuels and invest in adaptation as fiercely as in mitigation.

The CP 31 presidencies 2035 targets on electrification, sustainable buildings, green industry,

and zero waste can turn our commitments into measurable progress.

And the climate implementation bridge can carry national plans across the valley to investable projects.

Let the 2nd global stocktake begin here with a sense of purpose and ambition. Second, our ambition must be adequately resourced.

A commitment without finance is a promise deferred. A promise deferred is lives left unprotected.

The world agreed to $300 billion a year for climate finance by 2035 en route to $1.3 million trillion dollars.

Developing countries need up to $305 billion a year for adaptation. Currently they receive only 26 billion.

This gap is not a rounding error, it's a verdict on our solidarity.

We should make finance adequate, accessible and affordable.

Financing should be as much as possible, non-debt creating.

We should fill the fund for responding to loss and damage,

ensure coordination and coherence among different sources of climate finance, and simplify the procedures.

Let vulnerability, not income alone, open the door to finance.

Third, no one must be left outside the circle of protection.

Small islands, least developed countries, low lying coasts,

they emit the least, but they face most of the adversity.

Early warnings should reach the last mile and anticipate new threats such as glacial floods.

New technologies, including artificial intelligence should properly be employed to enhance early warning systems.

The cost of climate action should be borne equitably.

Before coming here, I visited the Republic of Congo.

I saw firsthand how forest communities are protecting and preserving one of the lungs of our planet. The whole world breathes better.

Because of the stewardship of forest communities from the Amazonia to the Congo Basin to the mangrove forests of Bangladesh,

we benefit from their work but regrettably fail to share the costs of their efforts. This must change.

The financial needs of the forest communities around the world must be factored in our response to climate change. Women, girls, young people.

Indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities should participate in shaping and implementing our climate response,

not merely be recipients of it.

Excellencies I came to the United Nations 40 years ago as a young diplomat. I've since heard. Many appealing speeches, many. But speeches do not cool our planet.

Decisions and delivery restoring trust,

managing transformation, delivering for all.

This is the compact of the 81st session of the General Assembly.

Let it also be the compact of this conference. When good faith meets goodwill, multilateralism works.

We have seen the most recent evidence of it when the UN General Assembly last month adopted the UN Declaration on sea level rise.

The small gavel of Paris did big things.

Let the gavel of Antalya do bigger ones. Let this be the coup of implementation.

Let our work here be remembered by a child in the Congo forest,

a farmer in Antalya, and a fisherman in the Bay of Bengal as promise delivered.

Let us answer them with action together strongly.

As President of the General Assembly,

I will ensure that the Assembly carries forward what we decide here into its 2027 Sustainable Development Goals summit. I thank you, Mr. President. Excellency.

Now, in order to address the General Assembly, I would like to lead the floor to Professor Sales Solo,

who is the Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organization. Professor Solo, you have the floor. Excellencies.

Since the industrial age, humanity has lived in harmony with the world's atmosphere,

oceans, land, rivers, lakes and ice.

The new World Meteorological Organisation's State of the Climate update shows that this harmony is under growing strain.

Let's look at what our measurements are telling us. Start with the ocean.

The ocean absorbs about 90% of excess heat.

This year is on track for a 10th consecutive heat record,

alongside monthly record highs in sea surface temperatures.

Warmer waters harms vital marine ecosystems and fuels stronger storms. And warmer water expands.

Sea level rise is now the highest on record,

increasing risk for 900 million people who live on low lying coasts.

This ocean warming will continue for centuries and even thousands of years. Now let's speak about the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide in the air is now more than 50% higher than before the industrial age.

Methane has nearly tripled and nitrous oxide is up by more than 25%.

All three are at new heights and measurements indicate a continuous increase in 2026.

Land and oceans take in about half of what we emit. They cannot keep up.

As a result, the earth's energy imbalance is at its highest value since monitoring began in 1960.

The planet is taking in far more energy than it gives back,

and it is accumulating heat at an increasing rate.

That is why the past 12 years are the 12th warmest on record.

From January to September 2026,

the global average temperature was about 1.47 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

It will be even higher because El Nino is turning up the heat. And last, the eyes.

This year, at both poles, sea ice reached one of its lowest winter peaks on record.

All the world's glaciated regions have lost ice for 4 years in a row.

Ice and snow are part of the water we save for dry years. Those savings are running low.

Water stored on land has been falling,

and 2025 was one of the driest for the world's rivers in 35 years. What does all this mean? We are supercharging our weather.

Heat waves,

storms and heavy rains are intensifying faster than our old baselines prepared us for.

Ice and rock collapse and floods in China and Nepal showed how risk in fragile mountain areas cascades downstream and across borders.

Now, a very strong El Nino is here. The strongest since at least 1950.

Its effect on global temperature typically peaks the following year,

so 2027 is likely to set a new global temperature record.

But the WMO state of the Global Climate Update 2026 provides some hope.

The WMO community watches the skies, the oceans and the ice and shares what it sees.

That is how we predicted El Nino months ahead, giving countries time to prepare and protect.

In the last 10 years, the number of countries with early warning systems has more than doubled.

Where these systems are strong, deaths from disasters are 6 times lower.

Excellencies, at WMO we know that what we measure helps us understand,

anticipate and plan.

Every number I have shared today is possible because national meteorological and hydrological services work together through a global observing system,

yet The places with the greatest gaps in observations are often the places hit hardest.

So let us invest in the people and instruments that observe our planet and warn its people.

That is how we build a sustainable, resilient and equitable future. I thank you. Thank you very much, Professor.

Now, in order to address the plenary, I would like to invite Mr. Chris Bowen, who is the President of negotiations. The floor is yours, sir. I know, do you know.

To my friend and partner, president of COP 31 Murat Kurum,

our distinguished guests excellencies, the Australia-Turkia Partnership, Connects the Mediterranean and the Pacific.

But our responsibility here as custodians of the climate process is global. Friends, let's be frank.

We meet at a time in which the world is being buffeted.

When our populations in our communities are being Seeing daily reports of crises and uncertainties, when these crises are putting the cost of living pressure up in every single country we represent,

when our people and our populations and our communities are being subjected to the largest energy security crisis in our history,

wars and conflicts in multiple theaters,

the rise of artificial intelligence with all its benefits and potential also gives rise to legitimate fears and questions.

The rise of AI and data centers that power it means that electricity demand will rise and put pressure on energy bills,

just as the need to decarbonize our energy system is also at its most acute.

With all this,

the climate crisis continues and El Nino will and continue to accelerate adverse impacts of climate change.

It's no exaggeration to say the world is facing a polycrisis, not challenges on one front,

challenges on multiple fronts all at once, and this is causing angst, confusion and anger around the world.

So this is the context for COP 31.

The world is watching us here in Antalya and asking the question, can multilateralism rise to these challenges? Is international cooperation still the way forward?

This fortnight we can answer those questions and legitimate concerns with a simple answer.

Yes, because the good news is in no small way the answers to these challenges are not in conflict, they are complementary.

Continuing to drive to deploy the cheapest form of energy, renewables,

harness the demand from data centers and accelerate the uptake of the cheapest form of energy.

Redouble our efforts to improve energy sovereignty, reliability,

and security by building more diverse forms of energy, less reliant on fragile supply chains.

Electrify what can be electrified and recognize that at a time of concurrent global challenges we need more,

not less, global cooperation to rise to those challenges.

At a time when the climate impacts are getting more real, more intense, and more frequent glacial collapse in Nepal,

heat deaths in Europe, the intensifying Super El Nino, climate change is no longer a forecast, no longer a prediction. It is a lived reality.

It is here and its devastating impacts are here with it.

In Tuvalu, one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world, we saw it firsthand at pre-COP.

For the people of Tuvalu and other countries in the climate front,

keeping 1.5 degrees within reach is not merely a concept, it's a difference between continuing to have a home or not. Survivable sea level rise or not.

The latest science tells us that we will overshoot 1.5.

Overshooting 1.5,

even temporarily should have all of us asking how can we work together to make the work necessary faster.

We can recover if we act with urgency, solidarity, and resolve.

Every fraction of a degree matters to lives, communities, and economic stability in the environment.

Energy security, cost pressures, and geopolitical tensions are testing every region and testing the international system.

In a time of rupture, Australia regards the COP as more important than ever.

Australia's engagement here affirms our continued commitment to multilateralism, to international cooperation, and the Paris Agreement.

So friends, while the challenge is growing, so is our agency.

Before Paris, the world was heading to 4 degrees of warming. Today the projections are closer to 2.6.

The clear, strong signal from past Crops unleashed $2.2 trillion invested in clean energy last year,

twice the amount flowing to fossil fuels.

Clean energy jobs globally now outnumber fossil fuel jobs.

That progress is a result of international cooperation through the Bell A mission to 1.5, COP 29, 30,

and 31 presidencies have set out practical pathways to accelerate implementation and will continue to do so at the pre-COP. The Takapakasoa Declaration captured a clear call.

Keep 1.5 degrees within reach, strengthen resilience, improve climate finance, elevate ocean action.

The Pacific is leading with practical solutions like the Pacific Resilience Facility,

and we ask countries supportive of the Pacific to engage fully with practical solutions like the PRF.

I also welcome Taka's leadership on the Antalya Ocean Declaration.

The ocean absorbs almost 30% of human generated carbon dioxide and more than 90% of the excess heat caused by global warming.

COP 31 can move ocean climate action from dialogue to delivery with practical investable solutions.

Friends in this partnership, Turkey and Australia have listened.

We've engaged closely with all parties transparently and inclusively. Key priorities for COP 31 have emerged. It's clear we must electrify the world.

We must lift electricity from 1/5 of our energy systems to a third.

The 35 by 35 pledge provides a practical pathway to increase electricity's share of final energy consumption and keep 1.5 degrees within reach.

Second, we must address adaptation and strengthen resilience as we know the climate impacts are more severe in overshoot scenarios. Third, climate finance.

COP 31 must make finance faster, simpler and fairer, helping countries turn their credible NDCs and adaptation plans into investable projects.

0.2% of climate finance goes to small island developing states for climate adaptation. This must change.

The Access to finance statement and action plan is an important step, particularly for vulnerable countries, including SIDS and LDCs.

Our consultations throughout the year and most recently in Fiji at the pre-COP point to a clear expectation. COP 31 must send.

And respond and send a global message at a time of this global moment to accelerate implementation.

Together with Minister Kum, after listening carefully to parties this year,

we have agreed to take forward a presidency-led decision for COP 31, party-driven, presidency-led.

It will bring forward practical solutions and send a clear message. We are accelerating and not stepping back.

We will act in solidarity to address the climate crisis here and in Talia.

Success means progress across the full negotiating agenda.

It means confidence for governments to act, for investors to deploy capital, for businesses and communities to plan for the future,

to send a message to boardrooms making investment decisions and living rooms talking about the challenges of today and tomorrow,

that the governments of the world are not wavering.

In their commitment to tackle climate change, to every party we must be ready to work, listen, and compromise.

We are here together to fight this urgent common threat, climate change, with collective resolve and purpose.

Together we can demonstrate that multilateral cooperation still matters, and it can and must deliver at the critical moment.

So let's spend this week in that spirit and rise to that moment. Thank you. Thank you very much, my dear friend.

If you allow me, now I will deliver my remarks from the lectern. So.

Distinguished heads of state and government, ladies and gentlemen.

It is my great pleasure to extend my warmest greetings to you all and to welcome you to Turkey and to our beautiful city of Antalya,

the jewel of the Mediterranean.

I would like to begin my words with an incident from 5 centuries ago in Istanbul.

In the 16th century, Istanbul's demand for water was growing rapidly.

When Hassan Suleiman, the lawmaker, saw water flowing through an old aqueduct in the vicinity of Kyatan,

he commissioned the great architect Mimar Sinan to investigate the surrounding water resources and bring Them to Istanbul,

Sinan surveyed the valleys and calculated the routes.

The valleys were crossed, aqueducts were built, and waterways were constructed.

Water was brought to Istanbul from sources many kilometers away.

This decision did more than meet the needs of its time. It served the city for centuries. The lesson is clear.

Hassan Suleiman looked at a few drops of water and saw the future of an entire city.

Because the wisdom of statecraft lies in the ability to read tomorrow's needs in the sciences of today.

The vision of the century of Turkey put forward by our President,

His Excellency Recep Tayyip Erdoğan looks towards the 2nd century of our republic with the same long-term perspective,

with its target of achieving net zero emissions by 2053.

This vision reflects our determination to shape our cities' energy systems,

industry, technology, and environment with future generations in mind.

We were reminded of the importance of this long-term perspective during the devastating earthquakes of February 6,

2023.

In the aftermath of the tragedy,

we launched one of the largest reconstruction efforts in modern history to rebuild our cities.

Architects, engineers, workers, public institutions,

and local authorities worked together across thousands of construction sites.

We rebuilt homes, workplaces, infrastructures, roads, schools,

and hospitals and delivered 455,000 homes to our citizens just in two years. This experience taught us an important lesson.

Resilience is not only about recovering after a disaster.

It is also about having the foresight to anticipate future disasters and prepare for them today. Humanity now stands at a similar crossroads.

The geopolitical balances and trade routes are shifting. Technology and artificial intelligence are transforming production.

Energy security is becoming increasingly important while that is constraining the space for development.

Water and food security are rising to the top of national security agendas. Climate change cuts across all these challenges.

As the world's challenges become increasingly interconnected, the horizons of governance must expand accordingly.

Climate change has become an integral part of the agendas of the energy industry, agricultural development and even security.

Therefore, when we discuss the future of the climate, we are also discussing the future of our nations, our energy systems,

the competitiveness of our industries, the safety of our cities and the world in which our children will live.

That is precisely why the political will represented in this room is so valuable. Excellencies, distinguished leaders.

We have repeatedly stated that the 1.5 degree target must remain our compass.

Yet in 2024 we witnessed global average temperatures exceed the pre-industrial level by 1.5 degrees on an annual basis,

and disasters have continued to strike one after another.

Today floods and landslides are affecting Nepal at the foothills of the Himalayas, claiming lives.

Floods in Pakistan are displacing thousands of people.

In the Pacific,

small island nations are struggling to protect their future in the face of rising sea levels.

Natural climate phenomena such as El Nino also have the potential to temporarily derive global temperatures higher.

We must recognize the value of time and strengthen our capacity for implementation without delay.

Of course, every country has different circumstances, resources, economic capacities, development needs and responsibilities.

Our collective success depends on our ability to identify common interests within these differences.

There is a strong convergence between climate action and our national interests. Energy efficiency strengthens energy security. Investment in water strengthens food security.

Clean technologies create opportunities for industry and employment. Resilient cities strengthen our economies.

Well designed climate action is an investment in prosperity, security, and competitiveness.

That is why since the beginning of Our COP 31 presidency, we have been working together with Australia,

which is leading the negotiations towards three strong commitments that we wish to advance here in Antalya.

First, Let us turn our national climate targets into investment programs.

Our targets must be reflected in our budgets.

Our budgets must translate into projects,

and those projects must drive technology, production, employment, and prosperity.

Through our 35 by 35 global electrification pledge, we are demonstrating our commitment to a just energy transition,

and we see the target of increasing electricity's share in final energy consumption.

To 35% by 2035 as an opportunity for global cooperation in advancing energy security and technological transformation.

A development model that assumes resources are unlimited and the world is endlessly consumable is simply unsustainable.

That is why we regard the zero waste movement initiated under the leadership of Her Excellency Emine Erdoğan alongside the circular economy and reduction of methane emissions as concrete priorities for climate action.

Second,

Let us move from climate finance commitments to actual access.

If projects wait for years to secure financing, if resources fail to translate into investment,

or if the countries are confronted with unsustainable debt burdens,

we lose both valuable time and our capacity for collective action.

We must urgently strengthen mechanisms that make climate finance faster, more accessible, and more actionable.

As the COP 31 presidency, we have developed a climate implementation bridge to address precisely this need.

It will connect national plans with projects, projects with financing, and financing with technology and expertise.

It will help translate political commitment into tangible investment on the ground.

Thirdly, Let us place resilience at the heart of our national development policies.

Let us prepare our cities, our water resources,

agricultural systems and critical infrastructure for the risks of tomorrow.

Turkey stands ready to share with countries confronting climate related disasters the reconstruction experience it has gained in the earthquake affected regions,

including the construction of 500 climate resilient homes within two years. Excellencies, Heads of State and Government.

The fundamental value upon which these three commitments must rest is justice.

Climate justice requires a system in which every country can advance towards our shared objectives in accordance with its own means,

capacities and development circumstances.

We can build an order that safeguards the right to development of developing countries,

facilitates access to finance and technology for vulnerable nations, and ensures that everyone benefits from the transition.

Under the leadership of our President, Turkey stands ready to contribute to this understanding and consensus,

drawing on its historical and geographical experience as a bridge between east and west, north and south.

The states may compete, they may defend their national interests with determination,

but when it comes to Food disasters and climate risks that recognize no borders, there can be no competition.

Developing common solutions through collective wisdom is in everyone's interest.

Today we have such an opportunity before us,

and the decision we make today may serve a country's energy security half a century from now.

A water basin we protect today may bring abundance to the tables of children not yet born.

Or a city that is to be made resilient may protect thousands of lives years from now.

A technology will help advance it may transform the lives of millions of people in another part of the world. This is where the true horizon.

Leadership begins the ability to make decisions that will outlive our time in office.

Hassan Suleiman saw the future of the city in a few drops of water.

The sanctuary of Turkey too embodies the determination to think beyond our own generation.

Today our responsibility here in Antalya is to look towards the common future of all humanity with the same vision.

Let us read tomorrow's needs in the sciences of today.

Let us leave our children a future whose outcomes they can experience with hope rather than on one whose decisions they must struggle to understand.

Let us make Antalya a symbol city for transition to action.

From promises to implementation and let future generations, when they look back upon our time,

be able to say they saw the future, they took responsibility and they made decisions that would outlive them.

Thank you all very much for your kind attention,

and I wish that we will deliver results through this meeting. Thank you very much. Excellent.

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, this brings us to the end of the ceremonial opening of the first part of the high-level segment.

Please remain in your seats to allow our guests to leave the podium before we begin the delivery of national statements.

I would like to thank all our guests.

We would like to thank you very much for being here. Excellencies, distinguished delegates.

Today, heads of state and government will deliver their national statements.