November 10, 2026

COP31 and the U.S. Retreat from Global Climate Leadership

By: Mark Nevitt

This article was originally published in Just Security.

Over the next two weeks, nearly 200 Parties will gather at the 31st Conference of Parties (COP) (COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye. Although Australia initially sought to host COP31, a compromise with Türkiye resulted in Antalya becoming the host city and Australia assumed responsibility for leading the formal negotiations.

COP31 comes at a pivotal moment for international climate progress and will be unfolding against an extraordinary backdrop for American climate diplomacy. The United States, the world’s largest economy and largest historical greenhouse gas emitter, is withdrawing from the international climate stage. But the rest of the world is not standing still. U.S. withdrawal creates an opening for other countries to shape the international climate agenda without American input.

The abdication of U.S. climate leadership creates a leadership vacuum at a moment when international cooperation on climate change is urgent. Who will fill it?

Meanwhile, global emissions continue to rise, and the world is increasingly on track to overshoot the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature goal, even as nations seek to keep warming well below 2°C.

As I wrote in Monday’s roundup, three things to look for are how other countries fill the leadership void left by U.S. withdrawal, how the results of the U.S. midterm elections interact with COP, and progress on loss and damage—the last of which I wrote on in more detail there. Here, I go into more detail on the first two, both of which point to potential paths forward despite U.S. retreat.

Read the full article in Just Security.

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