Points clés de l'article :
- COP31 runs from 9 to 20 November 2026 in Antalya: Turkey presides, Australia leads the negotiations.
- According to the UN, the world is heading for 2.6 °C to 2.8 °C of warming this century.
- The presidency wants a deal on electrification. Phasing out fossil fuels is not on the official agenda.
- COPs face criticism, yet projections have dropped from over 4 °C to 2.6 °C since the Paris Agreement.
- Inside companies, these decisions turn into CSR careers: carbon footprint, reduction pathway, risk analysis, reporting.
The figures landed a few days before the opening. On 27 October 2026, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin that the three main greenhouse gases reached record concentrations in 2025. CO2 rose to 426.8 parts per million, 153% of its 1750 level. Six days earlier, on 21 October 2026, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) published its Emissions Gap Report 2026, the annual report measuring the gap between what countries promise and what is needed. If every country keeps its pledges, warming will reach 2.6 °C this century. With current policies, it will be 2.8 °C.
The same day brought more bad news. Every country must submit a plan to the UN stating how much it intends to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. These plans are called “national contributions”. UN Climate Change (UNFCCC), the agency that organises the COPs, added up all the plans it has received. The result: even if every one of them were kept, global emissions would fall by only 6% by 2035 compared with 2019, Les Echos reported on 27 October. To limit warming to 1.5 °C, the IPCC estimated in 2023 that they would need to fall by 60%. “Collective progress remains clearly insufficient,” acknowledged Simon Stiell, head of UN Climate Change.
COP31 in Antalya: a conference with two leaders
COP31 runs from 9 to 20 November 2026 at the Antalya Expo Center, on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. Heads of state are expected on 11 and 12 November. Unusually, the host country will not lead the talks itself. Turkey and Australia both wanted to host this COP, and they ended up sharing the roles. Turkey hosts and presides over the conference, through its environment minister, Murat Kurum. Australia’s climate minister, Chris Bowen, will lead the negotiations between countries, according to UN Climate Change.
The Turkish presidency has chosen a central theme: electrification. It proposes that electricity should make up 35% of final energy consumption by 2035, a goal dubbed “35/35”, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). The idea is to replace the oil and gas burned in cars, boilers and factories with low-carbon electricity. The European Union and France support this, AFP reports. Paris wants “clean electrification” written into a formal COP decision, not just voluntary pledges. For the French weekly La Vie, in an article published on 3 November 2026, the summit’s challenge is to build an agreement on electrification to move away from fossil fuels.
Phasing out fossil fuels, however, is not on the official agenda, AFP notes. Antalya is also due to launch the second global stocktake of the Paris Agreement, the five-yearly exercise that checks whether the world is on track. It will conclude in 2028, at COP33. United Nations University lists it among five things to watch at this conference, in an analysis published on 14 October 2026.
Why so many people have stopped believing in COPs
Sceptics have solid arguments.
The first is called Belém. This Brazilian city, a gateway to the Amazon, hosted COP30 in November 2025. According to the French Ministry for the Ecological Transition, the conference ended with a minimal deal: the final text does not explicitly mention fossil fuels. Two years earlier, in Dubai, COP28 had crossed a line. In paragraph 28 of its global stocktake decision, it called on countries for the first time to contribute to “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems”. In its COP30 review, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs regretted the “insufficient ambition” of the Belém text. It also noted that nearly 80 countries had not yet submitted their new national contribution.
The second argument is about who fills the corridors. In Belém, more than 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists were accredited, one in every 25 participants, according to a count by the NGO coalition Kick Big Polluters Out. In an investigation published on 26 October 2026, the French magazine Socialter points out that the three previous COPs were held in oil and gas states: Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan.
The third is about the rules. Decisions are taken by consensus, so a single country can block a text. Researchers Amy Dahan and Stefan Aykut describe the process as a “factory of slowness” in their book Gouverner le climat (Presses de Sciences Po, 2015). The United States, meanwhile, left the Paris Agreement and then the UN climate convention in early 2026, Socialter recalls.
What COPs have changed anyway
COP supporters have arguments too, and the first one is a curve. Before the Paris Agreement, projections pointed to more than 4 °C of warming. Today the figure is 2.6 °C, according to UN Climate Change. That is still far too much, but it is almost one and a half degrees less.
This gap comes from national policies adopted to meet commitments made at COPs. In France, the energy and climate law of 8 November 2019 wrote the goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 into law, “in line with the Paris Agreement”.
UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report provides hard evidence. It draws on more than 220 evaluations of climate policies. Those targeting the electricity sector cut emissions by 9% on average. Carbon taxes and cap-and-trade schemes achieved reductions of 5 to 13% depending on the sector. Since the Paris Agreement, renewable electricity capacity has grown three times faster than anticipated, and solar seven times faster. “We have a wealth of success stories showing that emissions can be cut quickly,” says Inger Andersen, UNEP’s Executive Director.
Even among critics, few call for an end to COPs. Speaking to Socialter, Gaïa Febvre, head of international policy at Réseau Action Climat, notes that they amplify voices otherwise sidelined, those of small nations and countries of the Global South.
Nor was Belém a complete failure. COP30 created a just transition mechanism. Its role is to help countries support the workers and regions that depend on fossil fuels, such as coal basins or refinery towns, as these activities decline. For now it is a coordination platform with no budget of its own, notes PreventionWeb, the UN information service on disaster risk reduction. Countries also launched two voluntary initiatives, the “Belém Mission to 1.5 °C” and an implementation accelerator, according to the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA). They are meant to push states to raise their national contributions. Belém also adopted 59 indicators to track progress on adaptation and called for tripling adaptation finance by 2035, United Nations University recalls. In Antalya, negotiators will have to show that these tools actually work.
What COP31 changes for CSR careers
Decisions taken at COPs end up reaching companies, as laws, reporting standards and questions from clients or banks. In Europe, the CSRD sustainability reporting directive was narrowed in 2026, through the EU “Omnibus” package, to companies with more than 1,000 employees and 450 million euros in revenue. Smaller companies remain indirectly concerned: their large clients ask for their carbon data to complete their own reporting.
What COP31 will change in practice depends on what is signed in Antalya. Three items on the agenda translate directly into company work. If the “35/35” electrification goal is adopted, companies will have to cost the switch of their vehicles, boilers and processes to electricity, and measure the effect on their carbon footprint. The second global stocktake, launched in Antalya and concluded in 2028, prepares the next round of national contributions, which will then become laws and reporting obligations. Finally, the just transition mechanism created in Belém puts jobs and employee retraining at the heart of transition plans, a topic sustainability departments share with human resources.
In a sustainability department, this work takes the form of specific projects:
- the carbon footprint, measuring the company’s direct emissions (scope 1), those from the energy it buys (scope 2) and those of its whole value chain (scope 3);
- the reduction pathway, often aligned with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a framework that checks whether a company’s targets are consistent with the Paris Agreement;
- climate risk analysis: a warehouse in a flood zone, a gas-dependent plant, a supplier exposed to heatwaves;
- reporting for companies subject to the CSRD, and answering client questionnaires for the others;
- the transition budget, negotiated with the finance department.
These tasks are carried out by well-defined roles: CSR officer, CSR manager, ESG analyst, carbon strategy consultant, ecological transition manager. We looked at one of them in our article on the future of the CSR consultant. According to Apec, the French executive employment agency, the average salary offered in CSR officer job ads was 43,700 euros gross per year in 2024, as reported by the French education website L’Étudiant. For senior roles, Apec places sustainability directors in the health, safety and environment job family. In its study “Les rémunérations des cadres dans 111 familles de métiers” (2025 edition), the median pay for this family is 54,000 euros gross per year, and 44,000 euros for those under 35.
Training at a CSR school
At a CSR school such as Klima School, the projects described above are at the heart of the Mastère in Sustainable Business Strategy, QHSE & CSR. Over two years after a bachelor’s degree, students work on them through case studies, up to defending a transition budget before a simulated board. For career changers with a four-year degree, the MSc in Sustainable Strategy & CSR condenses this path into one year. Both lead to the French state-registered RNCP 37769 level 7 title, “Manager de la responsabilité sociétale des entreprises et du développement durable”. After two years of higher education, the Bachelor 3 in Sustainable Business Strategy, QHSE & CSR leads in one year to the RNCP 39599 level 6 title.
These programmes run as work-study, four days in a company and one day at school. Tuition is then covered by the company’s skills operator (OPCO), and the student is a salaried employee. They are also open as full-time study. Classes take place on the Nanterre campus, west of Paris, or online, with intakes in September and January. To see what classes look like, read what you actually learn at a business school focused on climate transition.
Frequently asked questions about COP31 and CSR careers
What is COP31? It is the 31st United Nations climate conference. It runs from 9 to 20 November 2026 in Antalya, Turkey. Turkey presides and Australia leads the negotiations, according to UN Climate Change.
Which CSR careers are linked to COPs? CSR officer, CSR manager, ESG analyst, carbon strategy consultant, ecological transition manager. These professionals apply inside companies the rules that stem from climate commitments: carbon footprint, reduction pathway, reporting.
What training do you need to work in CSR? At Klima School, a CSR school in Nanterre, there are three paths: the Bachelor 3 after two years of higher education (RNCP 39599, level 6), the Mastère after a bachelor’s degree and the one-year MSc after a four-year degree (RNCP 37769, level 7). All run as work-study or full-time study.
To compare the programmes, download the brochure or book a call with an adviser.
