COP31: Climate governance must be built on justice

I do not know whether world leaders visited the Iran Pavilion during the Leaders’ Summit of the climate conference in Turkiye. Children wearing flower garlands around their necks are welcoming everyone there with smiling faces. Beside them are the remains of a damaged schoolroom, a burnt schoolbag, a favourite doll hanging from the bag’s zipper, and a broken blackboard in front of them. There are no mathematics problems, grammar lessons or homework written on the board. Instead, the words written in chalk read: 168 children killed in Israeli and US attacks.

On the very first day of the unjust US-Israeli war against Iran, which began on 28 February, these children were killed in an attack on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, in the country’s south. These children have lost their names and identities and have become mere ‘numbers’.

The number 168, written on the blackboard as part of the installation depicting the horrific consequences of war at the Iran Pavilion, left me numb. By presenting the tragic deaths of people, biodiversity and ecosystems merely through numbers, their identities, existence and the politics of power behind them are concealed.

The figures presented for the 1,500 people killed in a heatwave in France, the 1,134 killed in the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh, or the 500,000 killed in the Bhola cyclone force us to consider whether, after death, people or trees become nothing more than ‘numbers’.

Similarly, the deaths of one tiger and 4.1 million trees in the Sundarbans of Bangladesh during Cyclone Sidr, the loss of 2.2 million tonnes of rice during the 1998 floods, or the destruction of 4.7 hectares of forest in Brazil’s Amazon due to fire are also reduced to mere ‘mathematical figures’.

Such forms of domination cannot be justified in assessing, disclosing and presenting losses and damages. This domination has emerged from the festering wounds of unjust capital and authoritarian power. The narrative of the climate platform must be freed from these wounds of injustice, and justice must be established. At the same time, state parties must build climate governance frameworks that are inclusive, equitable, diversity-friendly and people-centred.

Those who have died—people, birds, tigers, trees and wildlife—are not merely physical entities; they are historical witnesses to a vast world of living memories. There is no initiative on the climate platform to decipher these memory imprints of living beings. As a result, losses such as death or the destruction caused by the collapse of a bridge are invariably considered ‘economic’ and measured solely in monetary terms. Although the narrative of ‘non-economic losses and damages’ has been incorporated into the climate framework, its significance remains smaller than a mustard seed.

On the occasion of Turkiye’s National Afforestation Day, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the Leaders’ Summit on its third day by planting olive saplings. Seeing the tree-planting photograph in the media reminded me of the lost relatives of these olive saplings—the trees brutally killed in Palestine because of war.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), in its 2023 Gaza Humanitarian Response Update, more than one million olive trees were destroyed in Gaza in 2023 because of the war.

Do trees have the freedom to be planted and survive, or to be killed? Does such freedom exist for trees in the neoliberal world? Whether trees, birds, fish or humans survive, and whether climate and cultural diversity endure, depends on the unequal globalised structures of power. Mining projects and commercial farms are being established by destroying the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, while the Rampal coal-fired power plant is being imposed on the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest.

During a discussion at the Indigenous Peoples’ Pavilion on the fourth day of the conference, an Indigenous representative from Argentina’s Qullam community angrily said, “Companies are carrying out mining projects by destroying our forests, national parks, trees, wildlife and settlements. Why should the right of forests and the environment to survive depend on the mercy of companies?”

The rights of nature, including humans and other living beings, to possess legal personhood must be formally recognised on the climate platform. Bangladesh’s High Court has recognised rivers as legal persons or living entities.

The discussions at the climate conference are translated live into the United Nations’ six official languages, which participants listen to through headphones. In the Blue Zone, someone dressed as a green turtle is delivering messages about protection, while many people are taking photographs with the person dressed as a turtle. If the dead and injured trees and wildlife affected by climate change, along with their relatives, were to arrive at a climate conference one day, would the United Nations have interpreters capable of translating their languages?

Although the heads of state of Bangladesh, Brazil, Australia, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Kuwait and Ethiopia attended, many major polluting countries, including the United States, did not participate in the Leaders’ Summit. So how can climate commitments and pledges be implemented? The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United Nations' international framework for addressing climate change, must establish a mechanism to hold world leaders accountable for decisions concerning the very survival of the planet.

On the first day of the Leaders’ Summit, a commitment was made to increase global electrification from 23 to 35 per cent by 2035. Discussions covered renewable and clean energy, green industrialisation, investment and employment, climate finance, adaptation, addressing loss and damage, financing for least developed countries, early warning systems for disasters, waste management, methane emissions and the 1.5-degree global warming target. Although political support for implementation-based solutions was discussed, no final commitment was made.

On the fourth and final day of the Leaders’ Summit, discussions focused on climate finance, implementation of the Paris Agreement, urban adaptation and energy transition. Pacific island nations demanded debt-free financing for climate-related losses and damages, along with rapid emissions reductions. The United Kingdom announced the appointment of its first Special Representative for Climate Security.

At the Leaders’ Summit, Bangladesh’s prime minister demanded grant-based financing, rather than loans, for countries affected by climate change. Alongside allocating 50 per cent of climate finance to adaptation activities, the prime minister also emphasised reducing the debt burden of climate-vulnerable countries, transferring environmentally friendly technologies, promoting renewable energy, ensuring the participation of women and young people in climate initiatives, creating green jobs and limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

World leaders must take initiatives to implement the discussions and proposals made at the Leaders’ Summit. At the same time, states, including Bangladesh, must build climate governance frameworks that are inclusive, equitable, diversity-friendly and people-centred.

The logos of corporate sponsors displayed on a huge billboard along the exit route from the Blue Zone, representing companies controversial for their environmental and climate records, raised concerns.

KOC Holding, the controlling shareholder of Turkiye’s major fossil fuel and oil refinery company Tupras (Turkiye Petrol Rafinerileri), is a global business partner of COP. Companies controversial for coal mining, large dam construction, deforestation and the destruction of coastal ecosystems are also among the sponsors.

Does this mean that the drama of greenwashing—deceiving a planet standing on the brink of destruction and breaking commitments—is about to be staged in Antalya as well? Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who attended the conference in Turkiye, also said that climate conferences are increasingly becoming exercises in greenwashing through repeated deception and delays year after year.

In the pavilion area of the conference, I spoke with Francisca Arara, an Indigenous representative from Brazil’s Acre state; Michael Selasi Setji from Ghana; Thilak Kiruatswoam, a leader of the organic food movement in Sri Lanka; Japheth James Guy, a climate activist from Papua New Guinea; Satej Chakma, an Indigenous representative from Bangladesh; Sohel Hajong of the Thailand-based Indigenous Peoples’ Network (AIPP); and environmental activist Marlen Morishol Chinchilla from Honduras.

All of them shared the view that climate decisions must be made by the people and their elected representatives, the state leaders. Under no circumstances can the climate platform be mortgaged to companies or agencies.

The Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) report 'The Impact of Disasters on Agriculture and Food Security (2025)' states that between 1991 and 2023, disasters caused the world to lose 4.6 billion tonnes of cereals and 2.8 billion tonnes of fruits and vegetables. Asia accounted for 47 per cent of total global agricultural losses and damages. Beyond the destruction of production, our entire food system is held captive by various forms of pollution and encroachment.

While world leaders are delaying efforts to ensure climate finance, a substantial fund could be generated simply by making the food system safe and equitable. According to the World Health Organization’s global estimates published on 4 June, approximately 866 million people worldwide fell ill in 2021 due to consuming contaminated food, while around 1.52 million people died.

Illnesses caused by unsafe food cost the world USD 310 billion annually in lost productivity and healthcare expenses. If the global food system can be made safe, it could contribute a substantial portion of climate financing.

The question is: how many more climate conference dramas must the world witness before world leaders accept their political responsibilities and commitments?

Maureen Goodman, head of the Brahma Kumaris movement, which actively promotes environmentally conscious lifestyles, believes that change will come to the global system. We must realise that the destruction of the Earth is also the destruction of ourselves. We must reject the arrogance of ‘self-centredness’ and listen to the Earth. Under no circumstances must we allow the Earth to be defeated.