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COP31 in Antalya, Turkey has registered over 92,000 in-person participants, potentially making it the largest UN climate summit in history, surpassing COP28 in Dubai which had over 80,000 attendees. The provisional delegate list shows more than 18,000 party delegates representing nation-states, with an additional 14,000 registered as "host country guests" - a significant increase from the approximately 1,000 in this category at COP30 in Brazil. The United States under the Trump administration has not sent a delegation, joining Israel and Myanmar as notable absences, while over 3,000 additional participants are registered to attend virtually.
Why it matters
The unprecedented scale of COP31 attendance reflects growing global engagement with climate negotiations, though the dramatic increase in host country guests and certain countries' absence raises questions about representation balance and diplomatic participation in international climate governance. These participation patterns may influence the summit's outcomes and the effectiveness of climate policy negotiations.
Understand the Science
More than 92,000 people have registered to attend the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, potentially making it the largest COP in history.
Carbon Brief analysis of the provisional lists of delegates, published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), reveals that more than 14,000 delegates have been registered as “host country guests”.
For comparison, the provisional list for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, last year included only around 1,000 delegates in this category.
As with COP30, Donald Trump’s US government has not sent a delegation. Other no-shows include Israel and Myanmar.
It was reported ahead of the summit that Taliban officials from Afghanistan had been registered for the event as observers; however, there are no delegates from observer states in the provisional lists.
With more than 3,000 “virtual” delegates signed up to attend the summit online, the total number of people registered for the event surpasses 95,000.
Further analysis of the participant lists will be added to this article in due course.
Party delegates
With 92,934 participants registered, COP31 is provisionally the largest COP in history – topping COP28 in Dubai, which was attended by more than 80,000 people.
This total is based on the delegates that have registered to be at the summit in person. The UNFCCC releases the final figures – based on participants collecting a physical badge at the venue – after the summit has ended.
The chart below shows how the provisional figures for COP31 compare to the final totals in previous COPs – going back to COP1 in Berlin in 1995.
The participant lists provided by the UNFCCC are divided between the different types of groups and organisations attending the summit. The largest group at COP31 is for delegates representing parties. These are nation-states, plus the European Union, that have ratified the convention and play a full part in negotiations.
This group adds up to 18,812 delegates – the second largest after COP28.
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(In keeping with recent COPs, the UNFCCC has published spreadsheets that name every single person that has registered for the summit – excluding support staff. Previously, COPs have typically included thousands of “overflow” participants in which countries and UN agencies could nominate delegates without their names appearing on their official lists.)
For consistency with Carbon Brief’s analysis of previous COPs, the above chart includes overflow delegates as a single group. However, the participant lists do divide the overflow delegates between parties and observer groups. Including the overflow numbers takes the total for party representatives to more than 34,000.
Nations
The map and table below present the delegation size – split between party and overflow badges – for all the countries registered for COP31. The darker the shading, the more delegates that country has signed up. Use the search box to find the data for a specific party.
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Unsurprisingly, host nation Turkey has registered the largest delegation for COP31 – with 2,950 people.
Following behind are Brazil (1,994 people), Nigeria (1,506), China (1,021) and Indonesia (978).
The rest of the top 10 is made up of Australia (835), Uganda (627), Italy (607), Japan (588) and Kazakhstan (557).
The UK comes someway down the list with a delegation of 255.
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The smallest delegation comes from North Korea (two), followed by Eritrea and Nicaragua (three) and San Marino and Trinidad and Tobago (four).
(It is worth noting that some countries – such as Brazil – allocate some of their party badges to NGOs, which can artificially inflate the size of their official delegation.)
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The post Analysis: Which countries have sent the most delegates to COP31? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Source: Analysis: Which countries have sent the most delegates to COP31?