In Antalya, South Asia's Climate Case Is About Debt

I was in Istanbul from 11 to 13 November, the same days world leaders gathered in Antalya for COP31. I did not attend the summit, but the week left its impressions. Istanbul Airport was crowded with travellers from across Asia. The weather was cold, prices were higher than I expected, and the people were unfailingly friendly.

Inside the summit, the welcome was less even. Leaders arrived in Antalya on 11 November, and it was not an easy day to be an ordinary delegate. Organisers had warned people to reach the venue before 7am, and some arrived as early as 5am, UN News reported. Roads were closed for motorcades while traffic built up for everyone else, and many delegates simply worked from their hotels, according to Climate Home News. The image is hard to improve on as a summary of climate diplomacy: the powerful waved through, the rest waiting outside.

A summit of speeches

About 40 leaders spoke that day. Several of the biggest emitters were not among them. The United Kingdom was expected to be the only G7 country represented by its head of government, the Royal Meteorological Society noted.

The most substantial speech came from António Guterres, at his last climate summit as UN Secretary-General. He proposed a "climate justice compact" built on a fair transition away from fossil fuels, protection for vulnerable people, adequate finance and cooperation across borders. He pointed out that developing economies outside China hold nearly two-thirds of the world's population but receive less than a fifth of global clean energy investment. "Climate justice is the defining challenge of the next decade," he said, as reported by the Mail & Guardian.

The host's headline initiative was more modest. The "35 by 35" pledge aims to raise electricity's share of global energy use from 23 percent to 35 percent by 2035. It does not say how that electricity should be generated. Pakistan was among the dozen or so countries that backed it, though Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif added a warning that "momentum without finance cannot be sustained".

What South Asia came to say

That warning is the heart of the region's position. South Asia did not come to Antalya to argue about targets. It came to argue about money.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Tarique Rahman addressed the summit on 12 November and asked that at least half of international climate finance go to adaptation. "Climate-vulnerable countries need grants, not more loans that increase their debt," he said, according to the Dhaka Tribune. He also called for debt-for-climate swaps and noted that Bangladesh produces less than 0.5 percent of global emissions.

The numbers behind that demand are stark. A study by the Dhaka-based think tank Change Initiative found that more than 90 percent of the climate finance Bangladesh received for its energy sector between 2002 and 2023 came as loans, Asia News Network reported. In other words, a country that did little to cause the problem is borrowing to cope with it.

Pakistan's case is similar. Its climate minister has put the cost of meeting the country's climate commitments at about $565 billion by 2035. Against that, Pakistan has submitted three requests worth a combined $58 million to the global loss and damage fund, The Climate Watch reported. Nepal and Bhutan, for their part, are pressing for a dedicated programme on mountain risks as glaciers retreat.

The gap between the hall and the negotiating rooms

The difficulty is that leaders' speeches do not bind anyone. The decisions are made in negotiating rooms, and there the news is less encouraging. By the sixth day, Climate Home News was describing limited progress as ministers arrived, with countries still divided over whether the summit should produce an overarching political decision at all.

There is a fair counter-argument. Donor governments face tight budgets, and they argue that loans allow limited public money to reach more projects. Türkiye has framed this as a summit of implementation, not grand declarations, and practical initiatives on electrification and resilient cities do matter.

But implementation costs money, and the terms of that money decide who benefits. A loan for a solar plant may pay for itself. A loan to rebuild a village after a flood does not. Adaptation and recovery produce no revenue, which is exactly why South Asia insists they be funded by grants.

What to watch

COP31 ends on 20 November. For South Asia, three tests will show whether Antalya delivered more than speeches: whether adaptation finance gets a clear target and baseline, whether the loss and damage fund becomes faster and simpler to access, and whether debt relief enters the final text in any concrete form.

The argument has been won in principle. Almost nobody at the podium disputed that vulnerable countries are owed support. What remains unsettled is whether that support will arrive as help or as another bill. Türkiye felt expensive to me for three days. For South Asia, the cost of a warming world is not a visitor's passing complaint. It is a debt that grows every year.