Vision Statement: Climate High-Level Champion for COP31

COP31 Climate High-Level Champion Samed Ağırbaş presents his vision for climate action on the road to Antalya and beyond at the opening of London Climate Action Week 2026.

I envision a world where children are free from the climate crisis and where every person has the opportunity to thrive in dignity, health and security and to participate meaningfully in shaping the climate solutions that affect their lives. A world free from hunger, where food systems are resilient, where communities are empowered as partners and have secure access to water and other life-giving resources, and where development pathways support responsible consumption, resource efficiency and shared prosperity.

Climate action must reach people where they are and be shaped with them. It must strengthen resilience in communities most exposed to climate impacts and generate tangible benefits for health, livelihoods, food security, nature and economic opportunity. This is the road to Antalya. This is our race to a better, more inclusive and truly sustainable future.

In Belém at COP30, countries resolved to decisively transition to a focus on the implementation of the Paris Agreement. As Climate High-Level Champion of COP31, my priority is to help turn that commitment into action by facilitating and scaling voluntary climate action across the real economy. This means bringing together national governments and non-state actors, including businesses, investors, cities, regions, civil society, Indigenous Peoples, faith leaders, youth, innovators, philanthropies and local communities.

COP31 represents an important milestone in this transition from ambition to implementation. The commitments, roadmaps, pledges and breakthroughs developed across previous COPs must now translate into measurable outcomes in communities, cities, farms, industries and households around the world.

Antalya is not simply another conference. It is an opportunity to demonstrate that climate action can deliver practical results for people, communities and businesses while accelerating implementation of the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake.

My vision is for COP31 to be remembered as a turning point where implementation accelerated across sectors, where partnerships delivered at scale, and where climate action became increasingly visible in the daily lives of people around the world.

I am committed to inspiring, facilitating and supporting efforts across the Global Climate Action Agenda, building on the achievements of Climate High-Level Champions over the past decade since the Paris Agreement. Together with my colleague, the COP30 Climate High-Level Champion from Brazil, we will work to bring the new five-year vision of the Global Climate Action Agenda to life and strengthen its role as a platform for accelerating implementation.

The challenge before us is considerable, but it is not insurmountable. Addressing climate change requires action across all its interconnected dimensions: strengthening food systems that are increasingly vulnerable to climate shocks; improving water resilience in the face of growing scarcity and extreme weather; accelerating the transition away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner; advancing resilient health systems; protecting nature and biodiversity; and reducing the resource inefficiencies that continue to drive emissions and environmental degradation.

At the centre of this effort is a simple principle: climate action must improve lives. Climate solutions are strongest when they are designed with the participation of those they seek to serve. This is the basis for a people-centered approach, which is at the heart of my vision for COP31.

Following His Excellency President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s vision, I believe we have a unique opportunity to accelerate progress and it is through Zero Waste.

An approach that has been developed under the leadership of Her Excellency Emine Erdoğan whose vision and global advocacy have helped elevate Zero Waste from a national initiative into an international movement.

Zero Waste is not only about waste management. It is about how societies organize themselves to live, produce, consume and prosper within the limits of available resources. It is fundamentally about stewardship.

It is fitting that this vision is being advanced from Türkiye, home to Çatalhöyük, one of the world's oldest known urban settlements and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. More than 9,000 years ago, communities living in Çatalhöyük demonstrated one of humanity's earliest examples of collective living, shared responsibility and resourcefulness. Long before the concepts of sustainability, circularity or climate action existed, people understood that thriving communities depended on making the most of available resources, minimizing waste and preserving the foundations of life for future generations.

Today, humanity faces a challenge of a different scale but guided by a similar principle. We must learn once again how to prosper while respecting planetary boundaries. In this sense, the transition towards zero waste and circular economy approaches is not only an innovation for the future; it is also a rediscovery of an enduring principle that has accompanied human civilization since its earliest beginnings.

Building on Türkiye's leadership in elevating Zero Waste onto the global agenda, COP31 provides an opportunity to translate that principle into practical action. The journey from Çatalhöyük to Antalya is a reminder that the stewardship of resources has always been central to human progress.

To translate this vision into action, the COP31 President-designate HE Minister Murat Kurum included Zero Waste as one of the top priorities for this year’s Agenda and we announced recently the Istanbul Platform on Zero Waste for Climate Action as a flagship initiative of COP31 and the Global Climate Action Agenda.

By prioritizing prevention, reduction, redesign, reuse, repair and refurbishment before waste is generated, zero waste solutions can reduce emissions, improve resource efficiency, cut methane emissions, strengthen food security, protect biodiversity, support resilient cities and create new economic opportunities.

As a cross-cutting theme of the Global Climate Action Agenda, the Istanbul Platform on Zero Waste for Climate Action will help connect existing initiatives, coalitions and stakeholders working across food systems, cities, industry, methane reduction, nature, biodiversity, health and sustainable development. It will serve as a practical bridge between climate ambition and implementation, helping translate commitments made through the Paris Agreement, successive COP outcomes and the first Global Stocktake into tangible results on the ground.

Through this effort, we will bring together climate and zero waste communities to accelerate implementation, mobilize partnerships, strengthen accountability, promote knowledge exchange and support scalable solutions capable of delivering measurable benefits for people and planet alike.

Among the many initiatives that I will champion, we will launch a global effort to reduce food loss and waste across cities, communities, businesses and value chains. At a time when hundreds of millions of people continue to face food insecurity, reducing food loss and waste is not only an environmental imperative. It is a moral imperative.

Every tonne of food saved represents less hunger, reduced emissions, reduced pressure on natural resources and greater resilience for communities facing climate impacts. Few actions deliver such powerful benefits simultaneously for climate, food security, health and development.

To support this transformation, we will work with philanthropic organizations, development partners, financial institutions and the private sector to mobilize the finance, investment and enabling conditions required to scale implementation and accelerate real-economy transformation.

I will also advocate for COP31 to become the first fully Zero Waste COP in its design, management and operational practices, demonstrating that the principles we promote globally can also be applied within the conference itself. I hope this can become a legacy for future COPs and a practical example of implementation in action.

To realise our collective goals, we must reach new voices and under-represented groups, especially those most vulnerable to climate impacts. We must listen to their needs and ensure that climate action is relevant, accessible and beneficial for all. Lowering barriers to participation and empowering communities to lead solutions is essential for a just transition that leaves no one behind.

The achievement of climate goals depends on governments and non-state actors working together. In the spirit of partnership, I invite all stakeholders to join us on the road to Antalya. We need innovative partnerships, practical solutions and collective leadership capable of delivering change across every sector and every area of society.

The true measure of our success will not be the number of declarations we adopt.

It will be whether children are safer.

Whether communities are more resilient.

Whether fewer people go hungry.

Whether cities become cleaner and healthier.

Whether businesses accelerate the transition.

And whether climate action becomes visible in the lives of people around the world.

This is the challenge before us.

This is the opportunity of Antalya.

And this is the future we must build together.