Mother Jones previews the COP31 climate summit opening November 9, 2026 in Antalya, Turkey—hosted under an unusual compromise but presided over by Australia—and traces nearly 30 years of negotiations that avoided naming fossil fuels until COP28's 2023 agreement, which the article says neglected to say how or when a phaseout would happen. It reports a UN warning that the world is on track to overshoot 1.5 degrees of warming, quotes John Kerry calling the US absence under Trump a defeat of the meetings' purpose, and notes the second straight year without a US delegation.