Antalya, Turkey – Climate activist Greta Thunberg arrived on Tuesday, November 10, at the United Nations climate conference, a summit held in a Mediterranean resort city that draws large numbers of holiday travelers each year. She reached the venue after a year marked by deadly heat and other climate-linked disasters, and she used her arrival to press a blunt message about who bears the cost of climate inaction. The original report of her arrival appeared on Mongabay [1]. ([1])
A summit in a beach resort city
The conference, known as COP31, runs from November 9 to 20 in Antalya, on Turkey’s southern coast. The UN says the meeting is taking place against a backdrop of record-breaking temperatures and growing energy insecurity. Thunberg’s arrival drew attention to a city better known for its beaches, old town and hotels than for diplomacy.
Delegates have been meeting since Monday, when world leaders and activists opened the talks. The Associated Press reported that the summit was already under pressure to produce new pledges while carrying out earlier promises. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries were working behind closed doors on funding for climate adaptation and recovery from disasters.
A warning about profits and power
At the venue, Thunberg said climate change was threatening everything and that “everything and everyone we love is at stake.” She argued that the world should put people and the planet ahead of wealth and geopolitical influence. In her words, the global majority and the planet itself were being sacrificed so that a small group could keep earning enormous profits.
She also said the political and economic systems that shape climate policy have become incompatible with human nature. Her remarks call for structural change rather than incremental adjustments. She is expected to remain at the talks for only a few days.
A year of extreme weather behind the talks
The meeting follows a year of severe weather. Rising temperatures and deadly heat waves in Europe and elsewhere have intensified calls for faster action, and the AP report linked the disasters to devastating floods in Nepal. The summit’s agenda reflects these pressures, with several issues at the center of the negotiations.
- Climate scientists warn that global warming is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the threshold set under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
- The COP31 president, Murat Kurum, has said the summit should focus on turning existing commitments into action rather than setting new targets.
- Kurum has announced an “Action Agenda” that includes cutting methane emissions and building climate-resilient cities.
- Campaigners are pressing for a clearer plan to move away from fossil fuels, which many countries say the talks have not addressed adequately.
Those goals sit alongside a broader question about money. Poorer countries want help paying for adaptation to rising temperatures and extreme weather, and the funding dispute remains one of the most contested parts of the agenda.
Thunberg’s history with climate summits
This is Thunberg’s first UN climate summit since 2021, when she attended the COP in Glasgow, Scotland. There she dismissed global leaders’ promises as “blah, blah, blah.” Her return to the UN process comes after she joined a 2024 protest rally in Georgia against Azerbaijan, which hosted that year’s talks. She accused Azerbaijan of using the summit to greenwash its crimes and human rights abuses.
What matters now: The talks run through November 20, and they are focused on implementation rather than new targets. Thunberg’s presence adds pressure on governments to link pledges to real change, and the outcome will depend on whether negotiators can resolve the funding and fossil fuel disputes before the summit closes.
Thunberg’s arrival made clear that the debate in Antalya is no longer only about diplomatic wording. For the people living through heat waves and floods, the question is whether the next two weeks will produce measurable action. Whether the summit meets that test will become clear only when the final decisions are announced.
