Behind the Scenes, Beyond the Rhetoric: COP31 and the European Contradictions of Environmental Responsibility

Turkey is preparing to host a major international event that will run for almost two weeks from next Monday. The 31st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP31), held under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will take place in Antalya from 9 to 20 November. Bringing together governments, international organisations, businesses and civil society organisations, the conference is expected to provide a platform for crucial discussions on how the international community can act collectively in the face of one of the greatest global challenges of our time: climate change. Undoubtedly, as one of the most significant gatherings in international climate diplomacy, COP31 is expected to strengthen international cooperation and translate climate pledges into tangible policy outcomes. But how effectively does climate diplomacy work under the current political and economic conditions? More importantly, do the universal goals proclaimed on the international stage actually align with the decisions being made and the actions being carried out behind the scenes?

With COP31 now only days away, let us look beyond the agreements and the rhetoric and take a closer look at the actual climate and environmental record. Examining how Europe, while seeking to keep its own territory free of waste, has turned Turkey into a 'dumping ground', alongside how agricultural land in Antalya is being sacrificed for infrastructure projects in the name of hosting one of the world's largest climate conferences, brings the contradictions between rhetoric and action into sharp focus. It also raises pressing questions about the credibility of climate leadership, the distribution of responsibility for protecting the natural environment and the legitimacy of global climate governance.

The Gap Between Rhetoric and Practice
The European Union (EU) has long presented itself as an influential actor, even an international advocate, in areas such as nature conservation, the circular economy and sustainable waste management. Although EU legislation has helped drive progress in recycling, resource efficiency and pollution reduction, Europe's waste exports reveal a far more complex picture. According to an assessment published by the European Commission in September 2026, the EU exported more than 1.4 million tonnes of plastic waste in 2025 alone. Of this amount, more than a third (510,000 tonnes) were sent to Turkey, making it the EU's largest destination for plastic waste among OECD countries. The United Kingdom also continues to export substantial quantities of plastic waste abroad, with Turkey remaining its leading destination. According to data compiled by the Basel Action Network, the UK exported approximately 675,000 tonnes of plastic waste worldwide in 2025, of which 139,000 tonnes ended up in Turkey. 

While these figures do not necessarily indicate that the entire process is improperly managed, they nevertheless highlight the sheer scale of cross-border waste shipments and raise an important question: are these materials being sent abroad to be genuinely recycled, or is exporting them simply a way of moving the problem elsewhere? After all, transferring waste across borders does not make it disappear, let alone guarantee that it will be properly recycled. The environmental consequences remain even when they are no longer visible within the borders of the sending countries that generated the waste in the first place.

This is far from a hypothetical concern. In May 2021, Greenpeace published an investigation documenting plastic waste originating from the UK and Germany being illegally dumped and burned at ten different sites across Adana, Turkey. Investigators found packaging from British and German supermarkets and other consumer brands among piles of discarded plastic, some of which had been set alight or left to pollute nearby waterways. The investigation exposed the environmental risks associated with the international plastic waste trade and demonstrated how materials ostensibly destined for recycling could instead end up being disposed of in ways that pose serious threats to local ecosystems and public health. Although these findings date back to 2021 and cannot establish the fate of more recent shipments, they illustrate that the concerns surrounding this trade are neither new nor unfounded.

The question of accountability becomes even more pressing when considering the European Commission's own findings. In its September 2026 assessment of plastic waste exports to Turkey, the Commission acknowledged that the country had strengthened its legislation and introduced additional inspections and higher penalties. Nevertheless, it also identified significant shortcomings, including insufficient transparency regarding waste generation and treatment data, a lack of information on how environmental safeguards are enforced in practice, and unclear institutional responsibilities for waste management. In other words, even the Commission's own assessment points to considerable gaps in the information available to establish whether imported plastic waste is being managed in an environmentally sound manner.

This also raises questions about the effectiveness of European oversight. The EU's regulatory framework requires exported packaging waste to be counted as recycled only where there is sound evidence that actual recovery or recycling has taken place under conditions broadly equivalent to those prescribed by EU environmental legislation. However, the European Court of Auditors' 2024 report highlighted serious difficulties in verifying whether plastic packaging waste exported beyond the EU is genuinely recycled under equivalent conditions. It warned that Member States were not in a position to provide sufficient assurance that such waste was actually recycled rather than disposed of through other means. This exposes an uncomfortable contradiction: while recycling performance is often presented as an indicator of environmental progress, the credibility of those figures becomes questionable when the final destination and treatment of exported waste cannot be adequately verified.

The EU has since introduced stricter rules under its revised Waste Shipment Regulation. From 21 November 2026, exports of plastic waste to non-OECD countries will be prohibited. However, since Turkey is an OECD member, this particular blanket ban does not apply to shipments destined for the country. Instead, exports to Turkey remain subject to a separate monitoring and assessment framework. This distinction matters, as it demonstrates that the tightening of European waste export regulations does not necessarily resolve the environmental and accountability concerns surrounding Turkey's position in the international waste trade.

Ultimately, the issue extends beyond regulatory shortcomings or the technicalities of recycling statistics. It concerns the way environmental responsibility is understood and distributed in international relations. European countries cannot credibly champion sustainability while treating the environmental consequences of their own consumption as someone else's problem. Nor can Turkey's authorities evade responsibility for the inadequate management of imported waste by pointing exclusively to the countries from which it originates. Both sides have a responsibility to ensure that environmental commitments are reflected in practice. But is it not a form of hypocrisy for Europe to defend its environmental standards and celebrate its recycling achievements while shifting the consequences of its own consumption and waste to another country?

The Spatial and Material Footprint of a Climate Summit
The contradictions surrounding climate diplomacy do not end with international waste trade. They are also reflected in the very infrastructure required to host major environmental conferences. COP31 aims to advance climate action and strengthen international cooperation. Yet bringing together thousands of delegates, representatives and visitors from across the world inevitably requires substantial infrastructure, from transport and accommodation to energy provision and logistical facilities. None of this comes without an environmental cost. The question, therefore, is not whether such an event requires infrastructure, but how it is developed, what environmental consequences it entails and whether these are compatible with the very principles the conference seeks to promote.

Preparations in Antalya offer a particularly striking example. According to local media reports published in August 2026, approximately 30 hectares of land near the Antalya EXPO exhibition grounds were being converted into parking facilities for COP31. By the time of reporting, filling and asphalting works had reportedly been completed across roughly half of this area, with construction continuing on the remainder. The preparations were also accompanied by a formal government decision. On 8 May 2026, a presidential decree authorised the urgent expropriation of certain privately owned plots around the EXPO site for the construction of parking facilities and other COP31-related infrastructure. Local reports, meanwhile, put the area covered by the expropriation at approximately 65,000 square metres, equivalent to roughly one-fifth of the wider area earmarked for development. These figures refer to different scopes and should not be conflated.

What makes these developments particularly concerning is the reported agricultural nature of the land affected. Local media have identified the wider development area as agricultural land and reported that the works also affect land associated with the Western Mediterranean Agricultural Research Institute (BATEM), which agricultural-sector representatives have described as high-quality farmland. It is worth distinguishing between the different sources of evidence here. While the presidential decree confirms the legal basis and purpose of the expropriation, it does not establish the formal agricultural classification of every individual plot. Nevertheless, the reported conversion of farmland into parking facilities raises fundamental questions about land-use priorities and the environmental costs of hosting a major international event.

The consequences of such development extend beyond the physical transformation of the landscape. As the European Environment Agency explains, soil sealing occurs when land is covered by impermeable materials such as asphalt or concrete. This can compromise soil functions, reduce water infiltration, increase the risk of flooding and damage local biodiversity. When productive agricultural land is involved, the consequences are even more far-reaching, potentially affecting food production and the long-term availability of an already limited natural resource.

Against this backdrop, the environmental footprint of the Antalya development deserves closer scrutiny than the immediate logistical demands of the conference might suggest. Were alternative locations or less land-intensive solutions properly considered? What assessment was made of the long-term environmental consequences of these interventions? And what measures, if any, are being taken to compensate for the loss of agricultural land and the natural functions of the soil? These are not merely technical questions. Climate action cannot be reduced to cutting greenhouse gas emissions or negotiating international agreements. It must also encompass the protection of ecosystems, responsible land management and the preservation of natural resources.

Ultimately, the issue comes down to consistency. If COP31 is intended to demonstrate how governments can turn climate commitments into tangible action, should the decisions made in preparing for the conference not be held to the very same standards? What does it say about the ethical foundations of climate diplomacy when preparations for one of the world's largest climate gatherings reportedly involve sealing agricultural land with asphalt to accommodate parking requirements? This is not to suggest that all infrastructure development is inherently incompatible with environmental objectives. Rather, it raises the question of whether the means employed to organise an event of this scale are genuinely consistent with the ends it claims to serve. At the very least, such decisions demand transparency, a serious assessment of alternatives and an honest account of their environmental costs.

Climate Leadership, Legitimacy and the Implementation Gap
Taken together, these examples point to a broader contradiction at the heart of international climate diplomacy: the widening gap between political commitments and the practices through which they are supposedly put into effect. Governments regularly come together to announce ambitious targets, endorse common declarations and present themselves as committed partners in tackling the climate crisis. Yet the credibility of these commitments cannot be measured by the language of international agreements alone. It ultimately depends on whether the same principles are reflected in the policies adopted and decisions made beyond the negotiating table.

For Turkey, hosting COP31 presents an opportunity to play a more prominent role in international climate action and demonstrate its capacity to bring governments together around shared challenges. For the EU and the UK, their claims to environmental leadership also come with responsibilities that extend well beyond their domestic borders. Both sides must reckon with the consequences of their policies, whether these concern the export and treatment of plastic waste, the enforcement of environmental regulations or the physical footprint of major international events. This does not mean, of course, that Turkey and European countries bear identical responsibilities. Their positions in the international waste trade, their regulatory powers and their respective contributions to environmental problems are different. Recognising these differences is essential. However, they should not obscure the fact that environmental responsibility is shared across interconnected systems of production, consumption and waste management.

The European Commission's own assessment of plastic waste exports illustrates precisely why this distinction matters. Its acknowledgement of improvements in Turkey's regulatory framework, alongside persistent shortcomings in transparency and enforcement, demonstrates that environmental governance cannot be judged solely by the legislation on the books or the targets announced at international conferences. What matters is whether reliable data are available, whether regulations are properly enforced, whether exported waste can be traced and, whether these arrangements produce tangible environmental improvements. The same logic applies to Turkey. Infrastructure developed for an international climate summit may fulfil legitimate logistical needs, but this does not exempt it from scrutiny over its land-use implications, environmental costs and long-term consequences. Where the practical decisions surrounding a conference appear to contradict its declared objectives, governments must be prepared to account for those inconsistencies.

Ultimately, climate leadership should be assessed not simply by the ambitions governments proclaim on the international stage, but by the extent to which those ambitions translate into domestic policies, economic relationships and everyday political practices. Commitments only acquire real substance when they begin to shape decisions that carry material consequences. Otherwise, they risk becoming little more than carefully crafted political statements. As delegates prepare to gather in Antalya, COP31 should therefore be an opportunity to look beyond the conference itself and question the narratives surrounding international climate action. The credibility of climate diplomacy depends not only on the agreements reached inside negotiating rooms, but also on the waste management systems, land-use decisions and institutional arrangements that shape environmental outcomes beyond them. 

This is where the concept of memory engineering offers a useful analytical lens. Understood as the deliberate, institutionalised and strategically oriented shaping of collective memory through the selective presentation of what should be remembered and what is left unspoken, memory engineering helps us examine how political actors construct particular accounts of their environmental responsibilities. European governments may foreground their recycling achievements and environmental standards while giving considerably less attention to the consequences of exporting plastic waste to countries such as Turkey. Similarly, official communications surrounding Turkey's COP31 presidency can showcase the Zero Waste initiative as a flagship environmental achievement while leaving the environmental implications of imported waste, shortcomings in recycling practices and the reported conversion of agricultural land for summit-related infrastructure largely outside the spotlight. When such omissions are repeatedly reproduced across official statements and institutional communications, they can shape public perceptions of environmental responsibility just as much as the claims that are openly promoted. Whether this selective silence is the product of deliberate political strategy or becomes embedded in institutional communication practices, its cumulative effect deserves scrutiny: inconvenient aspects of the recent past risk fading from public attention, while carefully constructed narratives of environmental leadership gain greater prominence.

A credible climate agenda requires more than the ability to articulate universal objectives. It requires political actors to take responsibility for the consequences of their choices, including those that occur beyond their borders or remain largely invisible to the public. If COP31 is to make a meaningful contribution to global climate action, its legacy must be judged against precisely these standards. The question, then, is not simply whether governments can agree on a common climate agenda. It is whether they are willing to uphold its principles when doing so conflicts with economic interests, logistical convenience or established political practices. True climate leadership begins when the distance between what governments say and what they actually do becomes a matter of public accountability, rather than something conveniently left behind the scenes.