Türkiye takes the lead: Antalya Dialogue drives global push for integrated action on climate, land and biodiversity ahead of the three Rio COPs

May 19, 2026

Participants at the Antalya Dialogue event, in May 2026

Photo credit: UNCCD G20 Global Land Initiative

The Government of Türkiye, under the umbrella of the G20 Global Land Initiative at the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), convened G20 members, current and incoming COP presidencies, partner agencies, relevant initiatives and UN entities for the Antalya Dialogues. The pre-UNFCCC COP31 meeting focused on gathering perspectives on strengthening synergies across the three Rio Conventions on climate change (UNFCCC), biodiversity (CBD), and desertification, land degradation and drought (UNCCD) as part of Türkiye’s priorities for the COP31 Action Agenda.

Held at a pivotal moment when all three Rio COPs will convene within the same year, the Antalya Dialogues reflected strong convergence around the need to move from political recognition to implementation, emphasizing land restoration as an operational convergence point across climate, biodiversity and land agendas with direct benefits for people, livelihoods and resilience.

Rio Convention synergies in the ‘year of three COPs’

The Antalya Dialogues took place as 2026 marked a critical “year of three COPs,” with the UNCCD, CBD and UNFCCC COPs set to convene sequentially. Participants described this as an opportunity to move beyond siloes and toward integrated implementation across the three Rio Conventions.

A recurring message throughout the Dialogue was that the debate on Rio synergies had moved decisively from “why” to “how.” Discussions throughout the meeting underscored that while global targets, commitments and initiatives already existed, fragmentation across planning systems, financing structures, reporting processes and national coordination mechanisms continued to hinder integrated and coordinated implementation.

Speaking during the Dialogue, UNCCD Executive Secretary Dr. Yasmine Fouad emphasized that the challenge was no longer recognizing the interconnected nature of climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation, but delivering implementation that works on the ground for people and ecosystems alike.

She also stressed the importance of ensuring that Rio synergies translated into practical results rather than remaining “good on paper,” calling for a stronger focus on addressing the root causes of fragmentation and implementation gaps.

Land restoration as the operational convergence point

Discussions throughout the Antalya Dialogues identified land restoration as a practical and immediate shared implementation pathway across the three Rio Conventions. Participants emphasized that the same land areas were simultaneously relevant to countries’ climate targets, biodiversity commitments and land degradation neutrality goals, yet these commitments often continued to be planned, financed and monitored separately.

Dr. Fouad highlighted Türkiye’s role in placing land restoration at the center of the Rio synergies discussion, describing it as a critical pathway for connecting the three agendas through practical implementation on the ground.

Participants also repeatedly highlighted restoring agricultural lands as one of the highest-leverage opportunities for accelerating progress across climate action, biodiversity protection and drought resilience simultaneously, while strengthening implementation across all three conventions.

Food systems and food security as an implementation priority

Food systems and food security also emerged as important areas for advancing Rio Convention synergies under the COP31 Action Agenda. Participants highlighted that sustainable land management within food systems could support climate mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity conservation and resilience to drought, while contributing to more secure and resilient food production systems.

Dr. Fouad emphasized that food security had the potential to bring countries together around a shared implementation agenda, describing it as one of the issues capable of bridging priorities across both developed and developing countries alike.

Discussions also emphasized the importance of linking restoration efforts directly to people’s livelihoods and basic needs, particularly in vulnerable communities facing increasing climate and environmental pressures where land degradation and drought are already affecting food security, and resilience.

From fragmented systems to coordinated implementation

A central theme of the Antalya Dialogues was the need to strengthen coordination across national institutional systems. Participants noted that while many countries work through separate focal points, planning processes, reporting systems and financing streams across the three Rio Conventions, stronger national coordination mechanisms would be needed to support more coherent and integrated planning and implementation.

Inputs shared during the meeting reinforced these concerns, with participants identifying lack of national institutional coordination as the most significant barrier to implementing Rio synergies, followed by insufficient financing and policy incompatibility. Strategic planning and institutional coordination were also ranked among the highest national priorities for advancing land restoration efforts.

Türkiye’s own 2025 Rio Synergies Protocol — which established coordination among the three national focal points through a joint working group and annual action plan — was cited as a practical model for institutional coherence and integrated implementation. Additional examples shared during the Dialogue included France’s General Secretariat for Ecological Planning (SGPE), which coordinates ecological planning across government ministries, Namibia’s unified technical system supporting reporting across all three conventions, and Panama’s Nature Pledge, which brings together climate, biodiversity and land commitments under a single national unified framework.

Toward COP31: building an implementation-focused agenda

The Antalya Dialogues supported discussions informing the implementation-oriented vision of the UNFCCC COP31 Action Agenda. The meeting reinforced growing momentum behind more integrated approaches to climate, biodiversity and land agendas, grounded in stronger national institutional coordination, integrated planning and practical delivery on the ground.

As preparations continue toward UNCCD COP17 in Mongolia, the CBD COP in Armenia and UNFCCC COP31 in Antalya, discussions throughout the Antalya Dialogues underscored that land restoration and food systems could serve as practical implementation pathways for strengthening synergies across climate, biodiversity and land agendas while delivering tangible benefits for communities, ecosystems and long-term resilience.

Director's Message

The year 2024 was pivotal for the Global Land Initiative. Land degradation and restoration remained prominent on the global policy agenda throughout.

The UN Environmental Assembly, G7 Leaders’ Summit, G20 Environment and Climate Change Ministers’ meeting, and BRICS Leaders’ Summit addressed land degradation and committed to scaling up land restoration efforts.

The European Union passed a new Restoration Law mandating quantitative targets for land restoration. The UNFCCC, UNCBD and UNCCD Conferences of the Parties (COPs), held during the last quarter of the year, reinforced land restoration as a crucial solution to combat land degradation, biodiversity loss and climate change.

Building on this favorable policy momentum, the Global Land Initiative continued to develop and deliver a robust program. In collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), we completed a database on Global Restoration Commitments by countries under the UNCCD, UNCBD, UNFCCC and the Bonn Challenge.

Representing a significant increase in global commitments since 2021, the total global commitment now stands at 1.2 billion hectares, with 30 countries, including 11 G20 members, pledging to restore over 10 million hectares each.

The UNCCD, with financial support from the Global Land Initiative, published the first global restoration economy international report, titled, Investing in Land’s Future: Financial needs assessment for UNCCD. The report defines the private sector’s growing role in land restoration and its potential for creating green jobs.

The study outlines key recommendations to support the growth of the restoration economy, which has an associated market survey valued at $37 billion globally, growing at 8.2% annually and is projected to reach $70 billion by 2031. Together, these studies stressed the need for focused policy action to encourage private sector investment and engagement in the restoration economy.

Working with the International Trade Centre (ITC), the Global Land Initiative launched the first cohort of the “Global Ecopreneurs Program,” training 100 young entrepreneurs from restoration startups. These entrepreneurs received training on improving business plans and pitching to investors. We plan to scale this program regionally to reach 10,000 ecopreneurs by 2029.

Training remained a cornerstone of the Global Land Initiative, with programs on the restoration of mining areas, of urban lands, of lowland-based systems, of drylands and with biosaline agriculture. These trainings consistently attracted more applications than available slots. To accommodate this high demand and broader participation, we also conducted online webinars on these topics, in English, Arabic and French.

The first University Curriculum Course on Sustainable Agriculture for Land Restoration was launched this year. It reached over 400 university teachers, with over 100 trained on implementing the curriculum. A university module on urban land restoration is in its final stages.

Representatives from 25 countries attended the second Global Changemaker Academy for Parliamentarians held in Bonn. With the European Union Restoration Law’s passage, global best practices can now be discussed and adapted to national contexts.

The Global Land Initiative’s visibility surged with participation in the G20 Environment and Climate Change Working Group meetings in Brazil, the COPs of the UNCBD and UNCCD and 7 other international exhibitions. In December, the Initiative, in partnership with Germany’s Federal Museum of Arts and Sciences, opened the Save Land: United for Land Museum Exhibition, the first museum exhibition on land restoration, which will run until June 2025.

Online engagement grew, reaching over 35,000 newsletter subscribers and over 14,000 followers across social media platforms, and a global reach of nearly 400,000. The Global Photography Festival, which attracted 17,000 entries from 154 countries, further boosted visibility.

The Global Restoration Information Hub was launched in July 2024. It is a compilation of globally available data on land restoration from credible sources. The site provides information on global best practices, restoration commitments, best practice legislations, documentaries, restoration actors and other databases.

The Initiative issued a global call for communities and NGOs to submit their restoration projects for small grant support, receiving over 600 submissions from 100 countries. Forty-one projects from XX countries were selected for funding.

[Statement on faith, if the faith report is finalized]

The G20 Global Land Initiative Steering Committee was kept informed of developments through regular communication. It met in July and continues to provide guidance on program implementation. It received the work plan for 2025-26; an exciting period of action is ahead.

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