Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey

Organized jointly by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB) and Bloomberg, the COP31 Business Forum New York Dialogue will bring together global business leaders in New York. The event will serve as the opening session of the Bloomberg Green New York program as part of New York Climate Week.

The event, which will begin at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 22, at Bloomberg’s headquarters, will feature opening remarks by TOBB President and COP31 Business Forum Chair M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, along with Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies and the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate.

The event’s guest of honor, COP31 President and Minister of Environment, Urbanization, and Climate Change Murat Kurum, will present the COP31 Action Agenda—which he is set to announce at the United Nations on September 21, in detail to the global business community for the first time at this meeting.

In the panel titled “The Private Sector’s Response to the COP31 Action Agenda,” to be moderated by Francine Lacqua of Bloomberg TV, Ali Y. Koç, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors at Koç Holding; Dr. Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Dr. Fatih Birol, International Finance Corporation (IFC) Managing Director Makhtar Diop, and International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Secretary General John W.H. Denton will speak.

More than 300 senior executives from the international business community are expected to attend the meeting.

- Hisarcıklıoğlu: “Governments sign agreements; the business community puts them into action”

TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu made the following remarks in his assessment prior to the meeting: “Governments sign agreements; the business community puts them into action. The COP31 Action Agenda tells us what needs to be done. It is the business community’s responsibility to show how it will be done. As the COP31 Business Forum, we are preparing a business community roadmap to put the Action Agenda into practice. We will present this roadmap, which we will finalize in New York, to the COP31 Presidency in Antalya.”

- Advisory Board meets for the first time

The COP31 Business Forum’s New York program will continue with thematic meetings scheduled for September 22-25. The Advisory Board, composed of global business leaders and established to evaluate the proposals the business community will present at the COP31 Business and Investment Summit in Antalya, will hold its first meeting on September 23 in New York.

The seven Workgroups, established to shape the global business community’s collective perspective and comprising more than 700 members, will also hold their second meetings in person in New York from September 22–25.

The business leaders co-chairing the Workgroups are as follows:

Electrification and Energy Transition Workgroup: Murat Pınar (Sabancı Holding), Greg Jackson (Octopus Energy), Vincent Petit (Schneider Electric), José Manuel Entrecanales (ACCIONA), and Roger Martella (GE Vernova)

Decarbonization in Industry Workgroup: Perihan İnci (TÜSİAD), Jayant Acharya (JSW Steel), and Katharina Beumelburg (Heidelberg Materials)

Climate-Resilient Cities Workgroup: Erman Ilıcak (Rönesans Holding), Thierry Déau (Meridiam), and Amanda Hickman (Honeywell)

Food Security and Agriculture Workgroup: Mehmet Tütüncü (Yıldız Holding) and Diane Holdorf (World Business Council for Sustainable Development - WBCSD)

Climate Finance and Investments Workgroup: Alpaslan Çakar (Turkish Banking Association), John W.H. Denton (International Chamber of Commerce - ICC), and Javier Rodríguez Soler (BBVA)

Climate Technologies and Artificial Intelligence Workgroup: Can Dinçer (Arçelik), Clara Barby (Just Climate), and Varun Sivaram (Emerald AI)

SMEs and Emerging Economies Workgroup: Esin Güral Argat (Kütahya Chamber of Commerce and Industry) and Shinta Kamdani (Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry)

- A First in COP History in Antalya

Hosted by Türkiye and organized by the TOBB, the COP31 Private Sector Ambassador, through the COP31 Business Forum, best practices and actionable recommendations from the global business community on climate issues will be officially submitted to the COP31 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

The results of the Workgroups will be announced at the COP31 Business and Investment Summit, to be held in Antalya on November 12–13. At the Summit, which, for the first time in COP history, will overlap with the Leaders’ Summit by one day, the business community’s recommendations will be presented to the heads of state and government gathering in Antalya. The summit is expected to be the largest business event ever held in the Blue Zone of a COP. The opening session of the COP31 Business Forum took place on June 22 in London.