Cop31 opens in Antalya with Australia at the wheel and Trump's America absent

The world's climate negotiators have landed in Antalya, but the hosting arrangement is a split shift. Australia runs the overall direction of the talks, while Turkey's government controls the action agenda, the programme of voluntary initiatives. The awkward division is the residue of an angry fight between the two countries over who got to host, settled only by compromise.

Anthony Albanese will speak at the opening of the leaders' segment, then is unlikely to linger. The Australian prime minister made hosting a Cop a pledge back in 2021 while in opposition, but arcane bidding rules forced a wait. Some observers read Australia as a half-hearted host, given how much quieter its media has been compared with previous host nations. Chris Bowen, the climate and energy minister, is the one in daily charge of negotiations, balancing a fossil fuel export business against a renewables buildout so hefty that consumers are sometimes handed free electricity.

Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan showed scant interest in climate before chasing the summit, and now his environment minister, Murat Kurum, holds the action agenda. Erdoğan has used that platform to push a cause close to his wife, Emine Erdoğan: cutting waste and ditching what she calls throwaway culture in favour of recycling. The pitch lands awkwardly given Turkey still has sites leaking vast quantities of methane.

Fatih Birol, the International Energy Agency chief, is understood to be among the advisers behind this year's focus on electrification, swapping fossil fuels for electricity in heating, transport and industry. Backers argue it could halve the energy we need. Brazil's freshly re-elected Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva makes Cop31 his first trip abroad since winning a historic fourth term, arriving with two non-binding roadmaps: one for moving off fossil fuels, one for halting and reversing deforestation. Neither carries deadlines or firm government requirements.

Xi Jinping is staying home, though China's breakneck energy and industrial transformation will shape the planet's trajectory regardless. The country is the biggest greenhouse gas emitter, responsible for nearly a third of annual global carbon output, largely from fossil fuels powering 25 years of explosive growth, while its renewables investment keeps remaking the global energy business. India's Narendra Modi toyed with bidding to host Cop33 in 2028, then pulled out in April without saying why. India sits torn between the world's third-largest installed renewable capacity and a coal sector supplying about 70% of its electricity.

No US delegation is expected, and Donald Trump's withdrawal from the UN climate framework will soon make participation impossible. His attention has been glued to midterm elections that exposed the electoral danger of an unpredictable White House, while a drought and fire-heavy summer bolstered pro-climate voices among Democratic lawmakers and governors despite pre-election climate hushing. Britain's Andy Burnham attends Cop for the first time after taking heat for staying quiet through record heatwaves and droughts, before affirming the 2050 net zero target and then backing the Jackdaw gasfield, with no decision yet on Rosebank. Ed Miliband, now foreign secretary, is expected alongside him at the leaders' summit, fresh from briefing governments on UK intelligence findings that collapsing ecosystems pose a national security risk. From December, Britain takes the G20 presidency, and The Guardian understands resilience to climate impacts will be a centrepiece.