United Nations secretary general António Guterres speaks at the opening ceremony of the Cop31 Antalya Leaders' Summit in Antalya,Turkey, 11 November 2026. (Keystone/EPA/Antonio Bat)

🌍War, conflict must not distract from climate action, leaders warn Cop31. Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva noted that climate change no longer appears in leaders’ speeches, while UN secretary general António Guterres said slowing climate action puts the world on a path of “mutual destruction”.

👔Indonesian civil society coalition challenges Sadikin’s bid to become WHO director general. Already facing public criticism for Indonesia's weak environmental health response to a wildfire crisis driven by slash-and-burn deforestation, the country's health minister, Budi Gunadi Sadikin, is now under pressure for "actions that have marginalised or penalised physicians, academics and health professionals who expressed legitimate criticism of government health policies", according to a letter sent by the group to WHO's executive board.

🌱Global science panel hits roadblocks ahead of Cop31 climate summit. Cuts by the Trump administration to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have contributed to uncertainty over its 2027 budget, while disagreements at a recent meeting have delayed the publication of a key report.

🌦️Early warning systems expand globally, but vulnerable countries remain at risk amid El Niño. A joint report by the UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction and the World Meteorological Organization found that coverage of early warning systems has reached 70 per cent, with mortality rates from disasters being 6.1 times lower than in 2015, but “significant gaps” still exist.