COP31 Champion: “Let’s focus on solutions that deliver visible, people-centered benefits to real communities”

The following remarks were delivered by the Climate High-Level Champion for COP31, Samed Ağırbaş, at the public event ‘The Global Climate Action Agenda: Proof of Progress’ during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany on Wednesday 10 June 2026.

Excellencies, colleagues, partners, Party representatives, thank you for being here. Thank you for all the good work already happening across the Action Agenda.

I am delighted to join you here today and to work together in the year ahead on this important and exciting Agenda.

Our Presidencies also held an event on the Action Agenda yesterday where they laid out our joint plans. We plan to build on the existing Action Agenda structure, and to elevate ten priorities from across the Axis.

We will also place emphasis on four topics: zero waste and methane, electrification, food security, finance mobilization.

Let me offer my perspectives on this important work.

Focusing on human-centered climate solutions

When we meet at these big events, it is easy to get lost in technical talk. Over the past six months, I have been travelling across the world to listen and learn.

I met with local leaders at the Africa Urban Forum. I spoke with diplomats and youth leaders at the UNFCCC Climate Week in Korea. Last week, I heard from community leaders, city mayors, financiers, innovators and youth leaders at the Zero Waste Forum in Istanbul.

The message is the same everywhere. People want clean air and clean water. They want healthy food. They are worried about extreme weather events. They want their community and city to be a safe, thriving place to live.

That is why I support the Global Climate Action Agenda. It provides a process and structure that connects high-level promises to real people.

Opportunities for accelerating implementation

I see a huge opportunity to bring together action initiatives working on climate solutions with those working on zero waste and circularity.

We are excited to leverage the full weight of the Action Agenda to advance climate and zero waste solutions to tackle food waste, reduce methane emissions, and make our cities more resilient to climate change.

Unifying Our Global Efforts: The Istanbul Platform

Because zero waste runs through so much of this work, we realized we needed a way to bring these pieces together. And that is exactly what we discussed last week at the Zero Waste Forum in Istanbul.

This is the largest zero waste event in the world. We estimate that nearly one million people joined our Forum and Zero Waste Festival. We organized more than 1,500 local events across all 39 districts of the city.

Right in the middle of this incredible energy, we brought together a number of the Action Agenda initiatives working on zero waste and climate solutions. We invited them to pool their efforts to scale progress further and faster.

Together, we announced the Zero Waste Package to Accelerate Climate Action as a contribution to the Climate Action Agenda. Our intended outcome is to unify waste prevention and reduction efforts across cities, businesses, and regions.

Together, we aim to double the number of zero-waste partners in the Action Agenda. We want to make sure these solutions are at the very center of climate implementation as a priority for COP31 in Antalya.

We also launched the Zero Waste Districts Initiative and its first pilot cities, which will create real-world circular economy laboratories in 100 countries. It will prove to the world that clean, sustainable cities are completely possible.

Finally, we celebrated the Emine Erdogan Award for Zero Waste, which honours real-world, grassroots excellence in waste prevention.

Key priorities on the road to COP31

All of this is being elevated as a priority for COP 31, where we are focusing on zero waste as a tool to accelerate climate delivery. This is not about forming a new global agenda. The topics already exist within the Action Agenda. Zero waste solutions can be a catalyst for action through all six thematic axes of our existing agenda.

Nowhere is the link between climate change and human survival clearer than in food security. Food loss and waste generates nearly five times the emissions of the entire aviation sector. Through the Action Agenda, COP31 will elevate food sufficiency and waste to a top-tier political priority.

I want to focus heavily on what unlocks real progress. We want to incentivize business innovation, encourage responsible consumption, and protect livelihoods.

As we head to COP31, let’s keep our focus entirely on solutions that deliver visible, people-centered benefits to real communities. Let’s turn the Action Agenda’s momentum into practical results on zero waste and climate solutions that are visible in our homes, our schools, and our neighborhoods.