Credit: UN Climate Change, Lara Murillo.
Delegates from nearly 200 countries, alongside world leaders, will gather in Antalya, Türkiye in November for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31) — the world’s largest international summit for negotiating and advancing global cooperation on climate change.
Each year, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meet alongside climate scientists, worker organizations, civil society, Indigenous Peoples and private-sector representatives to agree on action to address the climate crisis.
Why is WIEGO attending COP31?
Cities account for a disproportionate share of CO₂ emissions and are particularly affected by climate shocks—including heatwaves, flash flooding and drought—that disrupt water, sanitation, transport, energy and other essential services.
Workers in informal employment provide essential services which are integral to communities’ responses to climate change. Yet though they have contributed little to global emissions, they are disproportionately impacted by climate change,
WIEGO research shows how these shocks undermine workers’ health, productivity and incomes, exacerbating poverty and inequality. Workers in informal employment are often excluded from support to cope with climate change and must bear adaptation and recovery costs themselves, even when their work contributes to reducing pollution and carbon emissions.
The climate crisis is a labour, economic and urban issue. COP31 provides a critical opportunity to affirm this, and place workers in informal employment at the centre of global climate action and just transition pathways.
What are WIEGO’s messages for COP31?
- Workers in informal employment provide essential services which are integral to communities’ responses to climate change: Parties must recognize the contributions of waste pickers and other workers in the informal economy to reducing emissions and delivering circular economy outcomes and integrate them into just transition, climate resilience, zero-waste and circular economy policies, programmes and investments.
- The Belem-Antalya Mechanism on Just Transition (BAM)’s purpose, functions, governance and operationalization must incorporate workers in informal employment and address their priorities: International guidance like the ILO Guidelines on Just Transition recognize that governments should establish targeted programmes for workers in the informal economy affected by climate change and structural transitions.
- Collective bargaining and social dialogue are central to achieving a just transition: Workers’ organizations in informal employment should be included, alongside trade unions in collective bargaining spaces on just transition, as well as in the BAM governance mechanisms themselves.
- Climate finance to secure and promote labour rights is essential to deliver a just transition: We join calls for quality public finance that reaches impacted communities and is used for social and other protections and to create decent work. Parties should also ensure that just transition financing arrangements, needs assessments and resource mobilization efforts explicitly include workers in the informal economy.
- Invest in climate-resilient infrastructure for those living and working informally: Mobilize direct, quality public finance to upgrade basic services, housing and sites of work – including markets, waste-sorting hubs and shade structures – to protect those living and working informally from extreme weather and long-term climate risks.
- Expand and adapt occupational health, safety and care infrastructure to climate risks: Invest in essential community infrastructure – such as hydration, shade and cooling stations, as well as community daycare centres – and reform occupational health and safety norms to protect workers in the informal economy effectively.
- The Gender Action Plans (GAP) – designed to create gender-sensitive climate policies across the United Nations system – should be fully implemented: We support calls for a GAP that delivers tangible and positive outcomes for a just transition, addressing women in informal employment and related gender issues through support for the care sector, the formalization of informal work and universal social protection.
What events is WIEGO participating in at COP31?
Occupational Health and Safety in a Just Transition: Voices from the Informal Sector
Date: November 10
Time: 16:00
Location: ILO Just Transition Pavilion
Extreme heat, flooding and other climate shocks are increasing health risks, reducing labour productivity, and disrupting livelihoods. For workers in the informal economy, the ability to absorb and recover from these shocks is especially limited and costly.
Drawing on research and worker-led experiences, the session will explore how the International Labour Organization’s work to make occupational safety and health an integral part of a just transition can translate into practice for workers in the informal economy. The event is being co-organized by WIEGO and the International Alliance of Waste Pickers with interventions from CUT Brazil and StreetNet International.
Zero Waste, Healthy Planet: Circularity without Harm
Date: November 11
Time: 17:00–18:00
Location: To be confirmed
Waste is often treated as an environmental and resource-management issue, but it is also a major public health and climate issue. Non-engineered landfills, uncontrolled dumpsites and open burning release greenhouse gases and toxic pollutants, while contributing to respiratory illness, vector-borne disease and soil and water contamination.
This event will examine how a circular economy aligned with the One Health approach can protect human health, ecosystems and the climate. The One Health approach aims to sustainably balance and optimize the health of people, animals and ecosystems.
Panelists will consider waste prevention and environmentally sound waste management; the health impacts of plastics and residual waste; safeguards for reuse, repair and recycling; and the policies, financing and standards needed to create safe circular systems.
WIEGO Waste Specialist Sonia Dias will join a panel on reducing the health impacts of waste management, alongside representatives from the Clean Air Fund and Health Care Without Harm.
The event is co-organized by Zero Waste Europe, the French Solid Waste Partnership and ISWA, in partnership with Health Care Without Harm, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, ICLEI, the BRS Secretariat, WBCSD and Ademe.
Science and Research for Urban Climate Action: Closing the evidence gap for informal settlements
Date: November 12
Time: 15:00-16:00
Location: Blue Zone Side event 3 (Zerzevan)
Cities, particularly in the Global South, often lack the data, capacity and tools needed to translate climate research into action. Stronger partnerships are needed to connect global scientific evidence with local and community knowledge, policy, implementation and climate finance.
Held as part of COP31 Resilient Cities and Built Environment Day, this roundtable will identify practical ways for governments, researchers, city networks, communities and development partners to turn urban climate evidence into resilient and sustainable development on the ground.
The discussion will consider what knowledge and tools cities still need, how multilevel partnerships can connect science with implementation, and how the forthcoming IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities can inform national and local climate action.
The roundtable is co-convened by UN-Habitat, the COP31 Presidency, UNFCCC through the Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action, and the Climate High-Level Champions, with support from IPCC, GCoM and IIED.
Scaling Gender-Responsive Climate Solutions across the Action Agenda: Workers and Communities in Informal Economies and Settlements
Date: November 18
Time: 12:30–13:30
Location: Special Event Room 3 – Assos (Amphitheatre)
Climate change interacts with existing inequalities. For women and girls – especially those working in the informal economy or communities in the Global South – their challenges in accessing resources, decent work, energy, healthcare, social protection and decision-making spaces is often deepened by climate change.
This session will present practical models which demonstrate how climate action has responded to environmental risks, livelihoods and local economic realities. These include approaches that combine measurement and evidence, participatory solution design, decentralized renewable energy and community-based early warning systems and locally led adaptation planning.
It will also highlight gender-responsive approaches that support women as leaders, workers, innovators and community actors whose knowledge and contributions are essential for effective climate solutions.
This solution and delivery event is co-organized by WIEGO and UN Women and includes participation from ICLEI Africa, Africa Just Transition Network, Brazil’s Ministry of Gender, Brazil’s Ministry of Cities, Brazil’s Ministry of Racial Equality and Asiye eTafuleni.
Delivering Climate Action Through Housing: Financing Resilient, Low-Carbon Urban Futures
Date: November 19
Time: 11:30–13:30
Location: Side Event Room Purple
The climate crisis is increasingly felt as a housing crisis. Extreme heat, flooding and displacement hit homes first, especially the informal and self-built housing many urban residents live in.
Today’s choices about how we upgrade existing homes and how we finance and build new ones will lock in emissions and risk for decades, but conventional financing is not keeping pace.
This session will examine financing tools for resilient, low-carbon housing, including public subsidies and climate finance for retrofits, land-based financing, and approaches to decarbonizing real estate.
Building on the Belém Call to Action on Sustainable and Affordable Housing, which links climate action directly with housing affordability, it will consider how climate finance, official development assistance and public investment can better support national and local housing priorities, including households in informal settlements.
The event is hosted by Build Change, the Government of France, Habitat for Humanity International and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Amira El Halabi, WIEGO’s Climate Justice Specialist, will join the panel.
