This is an extract from a recent paper “Priorities for the EU to advance an ambitious, equitable and implementation-focused outcome at COP31” published by Climate Action Network Europe.

COP31 comes at an intensely difficult moment for international cooperation. Climate impacts are intensifying across Europe and globally, while geopolitical tensions are putting multilateral institutions under strain. At the same time, the climate negotiations offer the EU the opportunity to work with other governments to reduce exposure to fossil fuel price volatility, and strengthen energy security, economic prosperity, global stability and support a fair transition through equitable climate action.

Every fraction of a degree avoided will save lives, protect ecosystems and reduce economic losses. Keeping the 1.5°C limit within reach therefore requires a rapid shift from commitments towards implementation: delivering real emissions reductions, accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels, scaling up adaptation and climate finance, and addressing the structural barriers that prevent countries from implementing climate action fairly.

COP31 in Antalya, should build on the outcomes of COP30 and translate them into practical implementation. Given its historical responsibility and capacity, the EU must demonstrate leadership. COP31 must move the Paris Agreement from commitments towards effective implementation. The first Global Stocktake (GST-1) established the direction of travel for mitigation, adaptation and financing, and included the need for a just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels. The challenge now is to translate these outcomes into action and address the structural barriers preventing countries from doing so.

  • The EU should support an outcome at COP31 that overall:
  • strengthens implementation of the Paris Agreement and the outcomes of GST-1;
  • ensures climate action is grounded in science, equity, CBDR-RC (Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities), justice and human rights;
  • addresses implementation gaps, including gaps in finance, technology, capacity and other means of implementation;
  • strengthens meaningful participation of civil society, Indigenous Peoples, workers, youth, women and affected communities;
  • protects civic space and reinforces an effective, inclusive, transparent and accountable multilateral climate regime; and
  • ensures that implementation efforts are responsive to the different circumstances, capacities and needs of developing countries.

1. Make the Belém–Antalya Mechanism a vehicle for delivering a just transition

COP31 must operationalise the Belém–Antalya Mechanism (BAM) as a practical platform for delivering the just transition principles agreed at COP30. The mechanism should help translate principles into country-led implementation and mobilise the international cooperation and support required to make just transitions possible. The EU should support a COP31/CMA8 decision on the mechanism that:

  • provides practical support for country-led strategies and their implementation, including through technical assistance, capacity building, technology cooperation and channelling predictable, adequate finance through existing instruments;
  • strengthens coordination, coherence and knowledge-sharing across existing just transition efforts and mobilises support at scale, including to address barriers to implementation;
  • ensures meaningful participation of rights-holders, social partners, civil society, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, youth, women and other affected groups throughout decision-making and implementation;
  • supports the alignment of NDCs, NAPs and long-term strategies with just transition principles, and embeds equity, human rights, social protection and decent work;
  • supports transitions away from fossil fuels alongside wider transformations across energy, industry, agriculture, food systems and land use; and
  • establishes fit-for-purpose governance that gives rights-holders and practitioners a meaningful role and creates the institutional space to turn coordination, knowledge-sharing and support into action on the ground.

2. Turn the transition away from fossil fuels into a global implementation agenda

COP31 must turn the Global Stocktake’s call for a just, orderly and equitable transition away from fossil fuels (TAFF) into implementation, including through the COP30-mandated roadmap. COP31’s host Presidency has placed implementation and practical initiatives prominently on the agenda, including clean energy and green industrialisation. Therefore, this goal should also be advanced through the COP31 Action Agenda by mobilising practical action on renewable energy, electrification and energy efficiency while complementing, rather than replacing, formal UNFCCC processes. The EU should use this process to advance a rapid, equitable and adequately supported transition while addressing the structural barriers that constrain climate action.

The EU should:

  • develop and publish an EU roadmap to phase out fossil fuels in line with 1.5°C, equity and the EU’s fair share, supported by Member State roadmaps; strengthen the Mitigation Work Programme as an implementation-oriented space;
  • support the development and implementation of practical national TAFF frameworks and roadmaps that are just, orderly and equitable, based on CBDR-RC and identifying financing, technology and international cooperation needs;
  • connect fossil fuel phase-out with trade, finance and industrial policy, addressing the structural barriers to implementation;
  • support developing countries’ fossil fuel phase-out through finance, technology transfer and international cooperation, consistent with the legal accountabilities established by the ICJ Advisory Opinion, and
  • address structural barriers including debt vulnerabilities, limited fiscal space and high costs of capital, while removing ISDS from existing and future trade and investment agreements.

The EU should also strengthen cooperation with complementary international initiatives, including the Santa Marta–Tuvalu process, including the April 2026 outcomes report from the First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, recognising their potential to address governance and implementation gaps alongside the UNFCCC. The first Santa Marta Conference identified a need for additional mechanisms and agreements to complement existing multilateral frameworks, with Tuvalu and Ireland due to host the second conference in 2027.

In this context, the EU should support international discussion of a new legal instrument to manage an equitable global phase-out of fossil fuels, including the proposal for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, where this can complement and reinforce the Paris Agreement and existing UNFCCC processes. The Santa Marta process has already generated calls for such an instrument, including proposals for a binding treaty establishing supply-side obligations and supporting a just transition.

3. Scale up public climate finance for implementation and addressing climate impacts

There can be no credible implementation agenda without climate finance at the scale required to deliver it. Developing countries face substantial investment needs while many are constrained by debt distress, limited fiscal space and high costs of capital. Private finance can contribute to climate action, but cannot substitute for predictable, accessible and grant-based public climate finance, particularly for adaptation, loss and damage and in countries and sectors where private investment is limited.

The provision of climate finance from developed to developing countries under the Paris Agreement remains a key obligation and responsibility. The EU and its Member States should therefore strengthen delivery and ensure that climate finance responds to developing countries’ needs, consistent with the 2025 International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion and the subsequent UN General Assembly resolution.

Setting the public climate finance trajectory

Developed countries, including EU Member States, should:

  • communicate well before COP31 individual post-2025 climate finance plans or commitments, outlining how they intend to contribute to the NCQG and its US$300 billion target in particular and the goal to triple adaptation finance by 2035;
  • increase EU Member State, EU budget, and European government contributions in line with their fair shares of the US$300 billion target;
  • prioritise grant-based, predictable and accessible public finance, with increased shares directed towards adaptation and loss and damage; and
  • ensure climate finance commitments do not increase unsustainable debt burdens on developing countries.

At COP31, Parties should agree on the scope and modalities of the Climate Finance Work Programme. It should provide greater clarity on the NCQG, including the US$300 billion target and options for implementation, with a strong focus on public finance provision by developed countries and additional sources of finance. The Work Programme should also clarify the public provision component of the US$300 billion target and its relationship with Article 9, particularly Article 9.1, ensuring sufficient provision of public finance.

Support for impacts: adaptation and loss and damage finance

The EU should acknowledge a clear baseline for the target to triple adaptation finance by 2035, based on the intended 2025 level established by the Glasgow Climate Pact call for developed country Parties to at least double adaptation finance by 2025. At COP31, the EU and its Member States should make substantial pledges to the Adaptation Fund; the Least Developed Countries Fund; and the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, including additional pledges for its start-up phase. The EU and it’s Member States should also prepare for the next replenishment of the Green Climate Fund.

4. Shift financial flows and reform economic frameworks to enable climate action

Beyond the provision of climate finance, COP31 should advance implementation of Article 2.1(c) of the Paris Agreement by addressing the financial and economic disenablers for developing countries to pursue Paris-aligned sustainable development pathways, and address harmful flows in all Parties’ finance systems.

This should include:

  • addressing debt distress and dependency, including the exacerbation of debt by climate impacts and the resulting vicious cycle between climate impacts and indebtedness;
  • addressing the high cost of capital faced by developing countries;
  • phasing out harmful financial flows, starting with fossil fuel finance;
  • advancing reforms at the IMF, World Bank and other relevant international economic institutions; and
  • strengthening developing countries’ fiscal space for climate and development.

The Veredas Dialogues, Xingu Talks and Climate Finance Work Programme should contribute to strengthening the emerging UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, including by exploring its role in expanding fiscal space for climate and development, its climate components and its potential contribution as a complementary pillar of the global climate finance architecture. As negotiations on the new UN Framework on Tax continue in parallel to COP31, EU Member States should also support addressing fossil fuel taxation in the UN Tax Convention.

5. Initiate GST-2 to strengthen implementation and accountability

COP31 should launch the second Global Stocktake (GST-2) in a way that strengthens the Paris Agreement’s implementation and ambition-ratcheting mechanism. GST-2 should assess not only progress against commitments, but whether current policies, finance flows, means of implementation, equity and justice considerations, and international cooperation are sufficient to deliver the Paris Agreement goals.

The EU should support a GST-2 process that:

  • identifies implementation gaps and gaps in means of implementation;
  • assesses delivery of the outcomes of GST-1;
  • integrates equity, justice and human rights throughout the assessment;
  • connects national experiences with global assessments;
  • allows for and facilitates coordinated civil society engagement; and
  • identifies concrete opportunities to accelerate action across all Paris Agreement goals and strengthen the ratcheting-up mechanism.

6. Protect multilateralism, civic space and meaningful participation

COP31 takes place against a backdrop of pressure on multilateral institutions and international cooperation. Maintaining trust in the UNFCCC process will be essential for delivering climate action. The EU should support a structured process to strengthen the effectiveness, accountability and inclusiveness of the international climate regime, informed by the recommendations of civil society, and grounded in human rights.

The EU should support:

  • stronger transparency and accountability within UNFCCC processes;
  • reforms that improve effectiveness while preserving inclusiveness;
  • protecting the integrity of the process, including through robust a conflict-of-interest framework to prevent undue influence by high-emitting industries;
  • ensure meaningful and equitable participation of civil society, Indigenous Peoples, youth, workers and affected communities;
  • protecting civic space and human rights, environmental defenders and other rights-holders involved in climate action, including through stronger safeguards in Host Country Agreements.

7. Ensure coherence between EU domestic action, international economic governance and international leadership

The EU’s international climate diplomacy at COP31 will be most credible when matched by its implementation of ambitious domestic action, which will also increase energy security, reduce exposure to fossil fuel price volatility, cut climate emissions, support economic resilience and deliver a fair transition on the way to climate neutrality. Trade and investment rules increasingly shape countries’ ability to pursue just transition and Paris-aligned development pathways. The EU should therefore ensure coherence between its international commitments and domestic policies by implementing new frameworks and ensuring upcoming pieces of legislation, policies and measures are robust and ambitious:

  • introduce a binding and harmonised EU framework to phase out fossil fuel subsidies as soon as possible;
  • introduce a permanent fossil fuel taxation via a common EU framework;
  • deliver a post-2030 climate and energy framework which accelerates renewable energy deployment and electrification; energy efficiency and energy savings; and a robust climate architecture pursuing at least 90% domestic emission reductions without reliance on international credits;
  • agree to safeguard funding for the next EU budget’s Global Europe at least 10.8% of an ambitious overall budget, and establish a 50% climate and environment spending target, including 35% for climate and 15% for biodiversity for Global Europe;
  • Ensure EU trade and investment policy supports just transition and Paris-aligned development pathways, including by reviewing and ending mechanisms that can undermine environmental regulation and transition policies, including Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS); supporting technology transfer, green industrial development and value creation in partner countries; ensuring sustainable critical mineral and clean energy supply chains; and addressing wider structural barriers to transition, including debt vulnerabilities and limited fiscal space; and
  • ensure stronger alignment of financial flows with the Paris Agreement by regulating private financing for fossil fuels, starting by excluding fossil fuel exploration and production.

Conclusion

COP31 must be a COP of implementation. The EU should use its political and economic weight to help translate the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake into concrete action: a just transition away from fossil fuels, scaled-up and accessible climate finance, strengthened adaptation and loss and damage support, and an accountable implementation framework grounded in equity, CBDR-RC, science, justice and human rights. This requires coherence between the EU’s domestic policies, its international climate diplomacy and its approach to finance, trade and economic governance. It also requires strengthening international cooperation where existing frameworks leave implementation and governance gaps. Complementary processes such as Santa Marta and the Tuvalu 2027 conference can contribute to this effort, including through consideration of new forms of international cooperation and legal instruments for managing an equitable fossil fuel phase-out.

Access the original paper here.