People’s Climate Summit to Run Parallel to COP31 in Antalya With 1,000+ Activists

Antalya, Türkiye — While COP31 brings negotiators from nearly 200 countries to Antalya from 9 to 20 November 2026, a parallel civil-society gathering — the People’s Climate Summit — will take over the same city with more than 1,000 activists and over 300 organisations from 100 countries, according to its organizers. The summit’s main programme runs 14 to 18 November, opening with a Global Day of Action.

The People’s Climate Summit (PCS) is a grassroots initiative of more than 100 organisations and individuals, independent of the official COP31 proceedings. Its organizer, Çiğdem Özbas, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) this week that registrations continue to grow ahead of the November event, and that the first week will be used to “make our demands visible”, while the second week will host forums, thematic meetings and evening monitoring sessions to examine proposals “that amount to greenwashing, that obscure the real issues, or whose commitments remain unfulfilled”.

The parallel summit mirrors a familiar pattern at UN climate conferences, where civil-society groups organize their own counter-events alongside the official negotiations to keep pressure on decision-makers.

Four themes on the agenda

The organizers have set four main areas of focus for the summit, all rooted in climate justice rather than market-led responses:

• Food sovereignty and agroecology — fair, local food systems that protect farmers and nature;
• Fossil fuel phase-out and energy democracy — ending fossil dependence and putting energy in people’s hands;
• War and militarism — the military sector’s footprint and the cost of conflict for the climate;
• Rights of nature — legal and moral protection for ecosystems and the communities defending them.

The programme is designed to strengthen international solidarity and develop collective alternatives, with debates, workshops and cultural events alongside the formal discussions.

A carnival-like rally on 14 November

The opening Global Day of Action on 14 November is expected to be the summit’s most visible moment. According to the organizers, climate groups from the United States will run puppet-making workshops ahead of a major rally that unions, rights groups and other movements are expected to join, creating what the organizers describe as a “carnival-like atmosphere”.

“The aim is to send a message to decision-makers that we won’t accept decisions made behind closed doors under the influence of lobbyists,” Özbas told AFP, arguing that ordinary people must have a direct say in the outcomes of the climate talks.

Turkish groups want a formal seat at the table

For Turkish civil society, COP31 and the parallel summit are a rare opening. The Climate Action Network’s Türkiye coordinator, Özlem Katisöz, told AFP that while civil-society groups have ad hoc contacts with government offices and the COP31 presidency, they are pushing for formal channels — including a seat in the Climate Change and Adaptation Council — “in order to have meaningful participation opportunities”.

Separately, Climate Network Türkiye, a coalition of 15 civil-society organisations, is trying to get access to negotiators. The head of the SEFiA think tank, Bengisu Özenç, said Turkish experts were looking to use their “substantial expertise and knowledge” to influence policy agendas through direct engagement with national policymakers — although the summit has so far established no formal consultation process for them.

Süheyla Doğan, head of the Kazdağı nature protection association that campaigns against mining projects, said her group would demand “much more concrete and serious policies” from the Turkish government. “We have the right to assemble and demonstrate and we will do everything we can within the law to exercise those rights,” she told AFP.

Safety of environmental defenders in focus

The question of how freely activists can gather in Türkiye is part of the story. Global Witness has documented that more than 1,500 land and environmental defenders have been killed worldwide since the 2015 Paris Agreement, and Peace Brigades International-Canada says it is following the situation for human-rights defenders in Türkiye in the run-up to COP31.

Human Rights Watch has said that how Türkiye treats its environmental defenders at home “will determine whether it can meaningfully fulfill its duties” as a COP31 host. COP31 will be held at the Antalya EXPO Center under the presidency of Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s minister of environment, urbanization and climate change, with a World Leaders’ Summit scheduled for 11–12 November.

Key facts

The People’s Climate Summit gives a clear signal: the official negotiations will not happen without civil society watching — and demanding — from the streets of Antalya. Whether the organizers’ demands make it into the final COP31 outcome texts will become clear in the second week of the summit, when the monitoring sessions publish their findings.

For related reading on COP31’s youth track, see Children and Youth Pavilion opens COP31 youth spokesperson applications — deadline 11 October.