Delegations from member states are scheduled to convene in Antalya, Turkey, between 9 and 20 November 2026, for the 31st session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference — known as COP31 — where assessments of existing commitments and negotiations over further action on climate change will take place.
Two distinct challenges now sit at the heart of international climate talks: bringing down the greenhouse gas output that drives further warming, and helping communities absorb the consequences of changes already under way. Measurements of average planetary surface warmth now sit roughly 1.4°C above the baseline recorded before industrialisation took hold. Documented consequences of a shifting climate — among them prolonged heat events, widespread wildfires, and intensified storm systems — are being felt by populations across the globe.
Getting ready for the effects of a changing climate — whether that means reinforcing coastal defences, upgrading infrastructure, or shielding communities from heatwaves and prolonged dry spells — falls under what practitioners call adaptation. Weather-related disasters vary widely in their likelihood of prevention, though the harm they cause can often be lessened through preparedness and response measures.
The Valencia DANA flooding laid bare how unprepared many communities remain when confronted with the kind of intense weather patterns that researchers associate with a shifting climate over coming decades. Upgraded alert infrastructure across Catalonia has played a measurable role in reducing flood-related casualties. Data drawn from Spanish regional governance points to infrastructure investment and early-intervention programmes as factors that have measurably reduced harm.
Adequate financing to keep pace with adaptation timelines remains out of reach for a number of nations. Projected annual adaptation costs for lower- and middle-income nations are set to exceed $310 billion by 2035, yet the international public finance flowing toward those efforts reached only $26–28 billion per year across 2022 and 2023. Pledges to triple adaptation financing by 2035 were put on record by governments the previous year. No defined path toward that objective has yet taken shape.
World Bank analysis of thousands of modelled future scenarios found that building more durable infrastructure in lower- and middle-income nations yields roughly four dollars in returns per dollar spent, with that outlay recovering its cost in 96 percent of the projections tested. Projections from the Global Commission on Adaptation put the potential net return on a $1.8 trillion climate-resilience spending push between 2020 and 2030 at roughly $7.1 trillion.
According to a worldwide study, preventive measures tied to climate adaptation could cut projected heat- and weather-related fatalities by roughly 30 percent. Adaptation funding directed toward health accounts for only a narrow share of the overall total. Over the decade spanning 2009 to 2019, just $1.4 billion — roughly 4.9 percent of all international adaptation funding — flowed toward health-related work. Health-oriented projects drew a share of just two-tenths of a percent of the total allocation.
With health now listed among the priorities in the COP31 Action Agenda under the Turkish presidency, calls have grown for directing more funding toward health-related adaptation efforts. Beyond direct investment in healthcare infrastructure, a range of actions outside the medical sphere — among them expanded access to adequate housing, cooling provision, and nutritious food — can also shield population health.
Addressing reliable access to food forms part of the broader agenda under consideration. Roughly one billion people globally face persistent food insecurity, a condition that heightens their exposure to the effects of a changing climate. Addressing hunger through the lens of climate adaptation demands funding that extends far beyond developing resilient crop varieties — it must also account for how food travels along distribution networks, how cold storage is maintained, how rural and underserved populations connect to trading systems, and how the final cost of food stays affordable for the most economically vulnerable. Where distribution networks break down and local harvests receive little support, addressing hunger means engaging every stage of the food system — from production through to consumption.
Both Catalonia and Spain hold positions at the Antalya climate summit where they could advocate for greater funding directed toward adaptation measures — both for populations within their own borders and for nations facing the steepest resource gaps.
