Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP31 climate summit

COP31 is the 31st UN climate summit, hosted in Antalya, Turkey. It brings diplomats from nearly 200 nations together in the summit’s “blue zone”. The United States is not included in that group in the article. The central task is negotiating precise wording for climate decisions and agreements.

Negotiators are dealing with more than 100 separate agreements. These cover issues such as adaptation, emissions cuts, finance and a just transition. Before detailed bargaining can start, countries must agree which issues belong on the official agenda. Late additions can trigger an “agenda fight”.

The negotiations matter because every verb can affect what countries accept as their shared commitment. Some texts begin as informal drafts, then become formal legal agreements. Countries must remove all square brackets and alternative options before reaching agreement. Unresolved issues may be postponed under rule 16, while agreed items become part of the summit’s outcomes.

COP31’s negotiations cover 104 substantive agenda items, according to Carbon Brief’s tracker before the summit opens. This count excludes procedural matters, including the election of COP officials. An agenda item is a subject requiring negotiation, rather than necessarily one finished agreement.

Across those subjects, negotiators will try to reach consensus on more than 100 separate agreements during the two-week summit. The number shows why tracking the process is difficult. Each topic can generate several document versions, with changing page counts, brackets and options.

The tracker records each document and its progress. It lists the topic, dates, page counts and links to original PDFs. It also counts outstanding brackets and options. The figures may change as parties add agenda items, produce new drafts or postpone unresolved discussions, but the opening scale is already substantial: 104 substantive items and more than 100 potential agreements.

Carbon Brief’s tracker turns complicated document changes into a visible progress system. Red means negotiators have not yet put anything on paper. Orange means they are working on an informal text, an early draft that records different views without formal legal language.

Yellow appears when a draft legal agreement exists. At that stage, remaining disagreements are shown with square brackets and alternative “options”. The tracker counts these markers in each document. A large number signals that parties still disagree over important wording or choices.

Green means all brackets and options have been resolved, indicating agreement on that topic. Negotiators may use bridging text between drafts to find a landing zone acceptable to all groups. If they cannot settle the text, the item can become grey under rule 16 and move to a later session. The colours therefore show both document maturity and political progress.

Turkey and Australia share leadership because Turkey is hosting COP31 and holds the presidency, while Australia is jointly running the negotiations as “president of negotiations”. The arrangement gives the host and the negotiations leader distinct roles in managing the summit’s political and drafting work.

The pair intends to produce a “cover text”. This would be an overarching political document summarising key negotiated outcomes, as well as issues that were not placed on the official agenda. It would sit above individual decisions and help present the summit’s broader political message.

The proposed text could recognise that warming is likely to “overshoot” the 1.5C limit and acknowledge impacts already occurring. It might also include solutions, including Turkey’s proposed electrification target: electricity supplying 35% of global final energy by 2035. The article presents these as possible inclusions, not settled outcomes.

Negotiating texts use square brackets and “options” to show where countries have not agreed on wording or choices. Agreement is reached only when all those markers are resolved. Until then, the document remains a record of continuing differences rather than a settled legal text.

If negotiators cannot close those differences during the summit, discussions may be subjected to “rule 16”. Under this procedure, the negotiations are postponed until the next session. Carbon Brief’s tracker marks such topics grey, distinguishing them from active drafts and completed agreements.

This does not mean the issue disappears. It remains unresolved and can return for further talks later. The delay also shows why the tracker’s status colours matter: they identify which items have stalled, rather than suggesting that every agenda item will produce a decision at COP31.

Adaptation finance, emissions cuts, trade tariffs and a just transition are difficult because they distribute costs, support and responsibilities among countries in different ways. Finance questions ask who should provide money and where it should go. Emissions discussions affect how quickly economies must change. Trade measures can alter competitiveness, while a just transition concerns fairness for workers and communities.

The article shows these tensions through several live disputes. Negotiators are trying to finalise the global goal on adaptation and decide whether to continue the mitigation work programme. They must also design the Belém-Antalya mechanism for global just transitions. The African group has proposed agenda items on trade tariffs, adaptation finance and Green Climate Fund funding.

The article does not provide a full explanation for each disagreement. It does show that countries are still deciding both substance and procedure. Some items remain contested before drafting begins, while others move through informal or bracketed texts. That makes compromise and clear wording especially important.

Under the consensus-based process described in the article, countries do not simply vote a disputed sentence into a climate decision. They negotiate until all participating parties can accept the wording. This matters because a single unresolved phrase can keep an agreement from being finalised.

The process begins with agenda-setting, then moves through informal texts and draft legal agreements. Informal texts capture different parties’ views. Legal drafts show remaining choices with square brackets and “options”. Negotiators may circulate bridging text to narrow differences and find a landing zone that all groups can accept.

When every bracket and option is removed, the topic is treated as agreed and shown green in the tracker. The resulting text can become a legally adopted summit decision under the UN climate process. If consensus remains impossible, rule 16 postpones the discussion instead. The article does not describe further formal adoption steps.