COP31: Human Rights Critical for Climate Action

(Istanbul) - Governments participating in the 31st annual United Nations climate change conference (COP31) should urgently act to protect the rights of communities displaced by the climate crisis and ensure that civil society groups can participate in the negotiations, Human Rights Watch said today.

COP31 will take place in Antalya, Türkiye, from November 9 to 20, 2026, under the shared presidency of Türkiye and Australia, on behalf of the Pacific Region. Negotiating countries and international climate funds should ensure that the needs of communities on the front lines of climate impacts and fencelines of fossil fuel extraction are driving the discussions, not corporate interests.

"Intensifying climate impacts are already uprooting entire communities, yet those bearing these consequences are too often excluded from the decisions that determine their futures," said Maria Laura Canineu, deputy environment director at Human Rights Watch. "Governments in Antalya should put affected communities at the center of climate action by ensuring that adaptation finance flows to displaced communities and to defending the space for civil society to hold government leaders accountable."

Human Rights Watch's priorities for COP31 draw on its multi-year field research, including numerous interviews with displaced residents, Indigenous leaders, environmental defenders, and civil society activists.

About 3.5 billion people already live in places and situations that are highly exposed to climate change impacts. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body that assesses the scientific evidence on climate change, has warned that even with urgent government action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures will continue to rise and climate impacts-from tropical storms to sea-level rise-are already making the places people call home unsafe, disproportionately affecting Indigenous peoples.

At COP31, Human Rights Watch will present "Solwata," a 25-minute mixed-reality documentary narrated and executive produced by actor and human rights advocate Mark Ruffalo, produced in partnership with the XR studio NowHere Media and Agog: The Immersive Media Institute. The immersive documentary is based on Human Rights Watch research on Walande, a community in the Solomon Islands, a Pacific island nation that was forced to plan relocation after king tides and rising seas eroded their small island home.

The planned relocation of entire communities to safer land is already happening-including in Panama, Senegal, and the Philippines as well as Solomon Islands-and is projected to increase globally. However, few countries have national policies that protect relocating communities' rights, and climate finance rarely flows directly to communities planning to relocate. Without adequate policies and direct access to funding, relocating communities frequently struggle with new human rights risks in relocation sites.

At COP31, governments, multilateral development banks, and international climate funds should dramatically increase total funding for climate adaptation, including planned relocation, and ensure that Indigenous and frontline communities have direct access to funding to exercise their collective rights to self-determination. Financing mechanisms should include safeguards so that planned relocation is treated as a measure of last resort after all adaptation efforts are exhausted; that it requires free, prior, and informed consent; and that it guarantees access to adequate housing, livelihoods, food, education, health care, and cultural preservation.

Rights-respecting climate action requires the full and meaningful participation of activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and Indigenous peoples' representatives. However, Türkiye's crackdown on freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly raises grave concerns about whether independent civil society will be able to participate safely at COP31.

Turkish authorities have a longstanding record of suppressing free speech, swiftly and brutally dispersing peaceful protests, and jailing government critics, journalists, and environmental defenders. "The Turkish government has ignored the need for environmental protections and turned on local people who are speaking out against environmental damage to their communities," said Deniz Bayram, assistant Europe and Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "States attending COP31 should speak out against Türkiye's crackdown on environmental defenders and impress upon their hosts that civil society participation is critical to achieving COP goals."

Restrictions on civil society have repeatedly marred previou[JR1] s UN climate summits, including arbitrary registration hurdles, surveillance, and detentions.

Meanwhile, despite scientific consensus from the Climate Change Panel that limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius prohibits new oil, gas, or coal projects, the Türkiye and Australia shared presidency has not called on countries to transition away from fossil fuels. At the same time, Türkiye continues plans for harmful coal power plant expansion despite court decisions which have rejected flawed environmental impact assessments greenlighting such projects. Australia has also continued coal expansion despite a high court finding that the state is responsible for emissions from burning exported coal.

Burning coal produces dangerous air pollution that significantly harms public health, particularly for at-risk groups such as children, older adults, and people with chronic conditions, Human Rights Watch said.

International human rights law, including the globally recognized right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, obligates governments to cooperate internationally to mobilize climate finance and to prevent foreseeable human rights harm. Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which both Australia and Türkiye are parties, and the European Convention on Human Rights, to which Türkiye is a party, the authorities are legally required to uphold the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly for all COP31 participants inside and outside the conference venue.

"Communities on the front lines of climate impacts know best what they need to survive and adapt with dignity," Canineu said. "The secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and attending governments should publicly press Turkish authorities to ensure respect for free expression in Antalya so that civil society groups and communities can be heard at COP31."