The COP31 Global Business Forum – New York Dialogue is set to take place this week, gathering business leaders for key talks ahead of the U.N. climate summit in Türkiye's Antalya later this year.
The forum is hosted by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB) and Bloomberg, and is significant as it will bring global business leaders together in New York, according to a statement from TOBB on Sunday.
The meeting will be held as the opening event of the “Bloomberg Green New York” program as part of New York Climate Week.
The meeting will begin at noon on Sept. 22, at Bloomberg Headquarters, with opening remarks by Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, the president of TOBB and the chair of the COP31 Business Forum, and Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies and the U.N. secretary-general’s special envoy on climate.
The guest of honor at the meeting will be COP31 president, Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum, who will present the “COP31 Action Agenda” to the global business community in detail for the first time at the U.N. on Sept. 21.
At the panel titled “The Private Sector’s Response to the COP31 Action Agenda,” Ali Koç, the vice chair of Koç Holding; Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA); Makhtar Diop, managing director of the International Finance Corporation (IFC); and John Denton, secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), will speak.
More than 300 senior executives from the international business community are expected to attend the meeting.
In a statement related to the meeting, Hisarcıklıoğlu said: “Governments sign agreements, while business puts them into practice.”
“The COP31 Action Agenda tells us what needs to be done. Showing how it can be done is the responsibility of the business community,” he added.
“As the COP31 Business Forum, we are preparing a business road map to translate the Action Agenda into implementation. We will shape this road map in New York and present it to the COP31 Presidency in Antalya.”
The COP31 Business Forum's New York program will continue with thematic meetings from Sept. 22 to Sept. 25.
The Advisory Board, established to evaluate the proposals that the business community will submit to the COP31 Business and Investment Summit in Antalya and composed of global business leaders, will hold its first meeting in New York on Sept. 23.
Seven working groups, established to develop a common position for the global business community and comprising more than 700 members, will also hold their second in-person meetings in New York from Sept. 22 to Sept. 25.
Under Türkiye's joint hosting with Australia of COP31, global business community best practices and implementation-oriented recommendations on climate issues will be conveyed through official channels to the COP31 United Nations Climate Change Conference via the COP31 Business Forum, led by the COP31 Private Sector envoy, TOBB.
The outcomes of the working groups will be announced at the COP31 Business and Investment Summit, which will be held in Antalya on Nov. 12 to Nov. 13.
For the first time in COP history, the summit is being organized to overlap by one day with the Leaders’ Summit. The business community’s recommendations will be presented in Antalya to the heads of state and government who will gather there.
The summit is expected to be the largest business-focused event ever held in a COP’s Blue Zone.
The inaugural meeting of the COP31 Business Forum was held in London on June 22.
The forum also coincides with a week of the U.N. General Assembly.
