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COP31: CIEL warns against ‘Overshoot COP’, urges faster fossil fuel transition – EnviroNews
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The Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL Switzerland) has warned that the first week of the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) in Antalya, Türkiye, risks shifting global climate negotiations towards managing a temporary breach of the 1.5°C warming threshold rather than intensifying efforts to prevent it.
The environmental law organisation cautioned that discussions around returning global temperatures to 1.5°C after exceeding the threshold could weaken pressure on governments to make immediate and deeper emissions cuts, while potentially creating opportunities for controversial carbon dioxide removal and marine geoengineering technologies.
As the first week of negotiations ended on Friday, November 13, 2026, CIEL experts Mary Church, Geoengineering Campaign Manager, and Sébastien Duyck, Human Rights and Campaign Manager, outlined their concerns about the direction of discussions and identified critical issues that governments must address during the second week of the conference.
Church warned that COP31 could become known as the ‘Overshoot COP’ if governments allow the prospect of temporarily exceeding the internationally agreed temperature limit to become an excuse for postponing urgent climate action.
She said the recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report 2026 had highlighted the growing likelihood of global temperatures exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, making immediate and substantial emissions reductions essential to limiting the magnitude and duration of the overshoot.
According to the UNEP report, the lowest possible overshoot pathway would see global warming peak at approximately 1.7°C to 1.8°C around the middle of the century before returning to 1.5°C or below by 2100.
Achieving this pathway would require global greenhouse gas emissions to fall by 18 per cent by 2030, 45 per cent by 2035 and 69 per cent by 2040, relative to 2025 levels, alongside increasing carbon dioxide removal throughout the century.
However, Church expressed concern that discussions around managing temperature overshoot could gradually normalise pathways involving warming of 1.7°C, 1.8°C or even 2°C before an anticipated return to 1.5°C.
She argued that such an approach could undermine the urgency of emissions reductions and expose vulnerable populations and ecosystems to increasingly severe climate impacts.
“As the first week of COP31 draws to a close, there’s a real risk that its legacy will be that of the ‘Overshoot COP’. As the recent UNEP Overshoot Report made clear, we are perilously close to exceeding the critical 1.5°C temperature threshold,” she said.
“But instead of doubling down on efforts to cut emissions and deliver on climate obligations, we are seeing a reframing of the conversation to one of how to manage ‘overshoot’ through pathways that peak at a devastating 1.7, 1.8 or even 2°C – before theoretically declining.”
The UNEP report also highlights the scale of reliance that a return-to-1.5°C pathway could place on carbon dioxide removal, estimating that approximately 320 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide would need to be removed from the atmosphere and permanently stored over the course of the century.
Church warned that excessive reliance on such technologies could create new environmental and human rights risks, particularly where large-scale interventions affect land, water resources, biodiversity and communities.
She maintained that carbon removal technologies must not become substitutes for reducing fossil fuel consumption and tackling the principal sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
“We cannot allow ‘overshoot and return’ to become the new language of delay, or open the door to dangerous carbon dioxide removal technologies that would cause profound harm to ecosystems, risk undermining the rights of billions of people and delay action to tackle the root causes of the crisis,” she said.
She further insisted that exceeding the 1.5°C threshold would represent a serious failure of international climate commitments, stressing that the temperature limit must remain central to climate accountability.
Concerns over ocean-based climate solutions
Another issue Church identified for attention during the second week is the growing discussion around the role of oceans in addressing climate change.
While acknowledging the importance of ocean protection and its contribution to regulating the global climate system, she cautioned against the use of broad and undefined expressions such as ‘ocean climate solutions’.
According to her, such language could create opportunities for the introduction of marine geoengineering proposals under the guise of climate action.
Marine geoengineering refers to deliberate technological interventions in ocean systems intended to influence climate processes or increase the oceans’ capacity to absorb carbon dioxide.
Some proposed approaches include ocean fertilisation, which involves adding nutrients to seawater to stimulate the growth of carbon-absorbing phytoplankton, and other interventions designed to increase ocean carbon storage or alter marine environmental conditions.
However, these approaches raise concerns about potentially unpredictable ecological consequences, including disruption of marine food webs, biodiversity loss and changes to ocean chemistry.
Church said negotiations must ensure that efforts to recognise the oceans’ contribution to climate regulation do not inadvertently legitimise interventions that could threaten marine ecosystems.
“As calls for a political outcome recognising the critical role of the ocean in regulating the climate system gain momentum, we cannot allow vague terms like ‘ocean climate solutions’ which open the door to dangerous marine geoengineering schemes to become embedded in the process,” she added.
CIEL demands legally grounded fossil fuel transition
Meanwhile, Duyck said the central test of COP31 should be whether governments are prepared to translate their existing climate and human rights obligations into concrete action, rather than concentrating on managing the consequences of inadequate climate ambition.
He argued that the international community must use the remaining week of negotiations to establish a clear pathway towards a rapid, equitable and fully financed transition away from fossil fuels.
His proposed priorities include ending the expansion of offshore oil and gas production, ensuring that electrification is powered exclusively by renewable energy and placing communities, human rights and climate justice at the centre of implementation.
“The world cannot afford an Overshoot COP that endorses the idea that governments have failed their legal obligations and that fails to lay out a path forward to target the root cause of this crisis,” Duyck said.
“The test of this Summit will not be whether governments can agree on how to manage a world beyond 1.5°C, but whether they are prepared to fulfil their existing legal obligations and turn them into action.”
His position reflects growing international calls for governments to move beyond climate pledges and establish practical mechanisms for implementing the transition away from coal, oil and gas.
The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, commits countries to holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.
The urgency of that commitment has increased as global temperatures continue to rise and climate-related disasters intensify.
The latest UNEP assessment indicates that current policies could result in approximately 2.8°C of warming this century, while full implementation of existing nationally determined contributions would still leave temperatures around 2.6°C.
The figures underline the substantial gap between existing government commitments and the emissions reductions required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals.
For Duyck, the transition must also address the financial and social inequalities that could prevent developing countries and vulnerable communities from participating effectively in the global energy transition.
He stressed that the process must be adequately financed and designed to empower communities rather than impose additional economic burdens on them.
UN climate process reform, civic space on the agenda
Beyond the substance of climate negotiations, Duyck identified the need to reform the international climate negotiation process itself as another important issue for the second week.
He said discussions during the first week on strengthening the climate regime were encouraging but must translate into concrete reforms to improve transparency, accountability and the effectiveness of the United Nations climate process.
Among the proposals he highlighted are binding conflict-of-interest safeguards, provisions allowing voting when consensus cannot be reached, and stronger protections to ensure that public interest, scientific evidence and human rights take precedence over corporate interests.
Conflict-of-interest safeguards are particularly significant in climate negotiations, where governments, fossil fuel companies, industry representatives and civil society organisations interact over decisions affecting the global energy system.
CIEL’s position is that stronger rules are necessary to prevent vested commercial interests from undermining climate decision-making and to ensure that negotiations remain accountable to the public.
The organisation also highlighted civic space as an important consideration, particularly the need to protect the participation of environmental campaigners, Indigenous Peoples, human rights defenders and civil society organisations in international climate discussions.
The participation of these groups is considered essential to ensuring that climate policies reflect the experiences and priorities of communities already facing the consequences of climate change.
Duyck said the climate process must become more effective, transparent and accountable if governments are to deliver meaningful outcomes.
“Crucially, we also need this space to stop self-sabotaging. That means binding conflict-of-interest safeguards, voting when consensus can’t be reached and putting people, science, and human rights ahead of corporate profit,” he said.
He added that conversations during the first week on strengthening the climate regime must evolve into concrete reforms.
What to watch in the second week
With COP31 scheduled to conclude on November 20, attention is expected to shift towards the political negotiations and the possibility of translating the conference’s discussions into decisions and implementation commitments.
The conference, which opened on November 9, is being hosted by Türkiye, with Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen serving as President of Negotiations under the countries’ joint presidency arrangement.
The second week will be particularly important for determining whether governments can agree on stronger implementation measures covering emissions reductions, climate finance, adaptation and the transition away from fossil fuels.
The issues raised by CIEL also place three critical questions before negotiators.
First, whether the emerging recognition that the world is likely to temporarily exceed 1.5°C will result in stronger immediate emissions reductions or weaken the urgency of existing climate commitments.
Second, whether governments will establish clear safeguards around carbon dioxide removal and ocean-based climate interventions to prevent potentially harmful technologies from being presented as substitutes for reducing fossil fuel emissions.
Third, whether countries will commit to a legally grounded, adequately financed and equitable transition away from fossil fuels while strengthening transparency, accountability and civil society participation in the UN climate process.
For CIEL, the second week must not become an exercise in accepting a future of higher temperatures and attempting to manage its consequences.
Rather, it should demonstrate governments’ willingness to address the causes of climate change through deeper emissions reductions, renewable energy deployment, adequate financing and respect for human rights.
The organisation maintains that the 1.5°C ambition must remain the guiding benchmark for climate action and accountability, even as governments confront the growing possibility of temporarily exceeding it.
