COP31 Business Forum Launches Global Roadmap in New York

As world leaders gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly and Climate Week, a pivotal moment in global climate action is unfolding. The COP31 Global Business Forum New York Dialogue convenes this week, bringing together more than 300 senior executives from across the international business community to translate climate commitments into actionable plans. Hosted jointly by the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Türkiye (TOBB) and Bloomberg, the meeting serves as the opening flagship event of “Bloomberg Green New York” and sets the stage for what promises to be the most business-inclusive UN Climate Change Conference in history COP31, to be held in Antalya under the joint presidency of Türkiye and Australia.

The gathering opens at noon on September 22 at Bloomberg Headquarters, with opening remarks from Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, President of TOBB and Chair of the COP31 Business Forum, and Michael Bloomberg, Founder of Bloomberg LP and the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate. The guest of honour will be Murat Kurum, Türkiye’s Minister of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change and President of COP31, who will present the COP31 Action Agenda the strategic framework guiding the conference to the global business community in detail for the first time, following its official introduction at the UN on September 21.

“Governments sign agreements, while business puts them into practice,” Hisarcıklıoğlu stated in a clear framing of the moment. “The COP31 Action Agenda tells us what needs to be done. Showing how it can be done is the responsibility of the business community.” The New York Dialogue is where that responsibility begins to take shape: the forum will develop a concrete business roadmap to advance the Action Agenda, to be finalised and formally presented to the COP31 Presidency when the conference convenes in Antalya this November.

Leaders Define the Path Forward

A high-level panel titled “The Private Sector’s Response to the COP31 Action Agenda” will feature perspectives from across business, finance, and global energy leadership. Speakers include Ali Koç, Vice Chair of Koç Holding; Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA); Makhtar Diop, Managing Director of the International Finance Corporation (IFC); and John Denton, Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Their discussions will bridge policy ambition with corporate delivery — identifying barriers, scaling investment, and aligning private-sector action with national and global climate targets.

Beyond the opening session, the programme runs through September 25 with thematic meetings, the inaugural gathering of the COP31 Business Forum Advisory Board on September 23, and the second in-person meetings of seven working groups comprising over 700 global business leaders established to develop unified industry recommendations. These working groups form the backbone of the process: distilling expertise across sectors into practical, implementable proposals that will define the business case for climate progress.

Antalya: A Historic First for COP

The outcomes from New York will culminate at the COP31 Business and Investment Summit in Antalya, Türkiye, held November 12–13. In a milestone for the UN process, this summit will overlap for the first time in COP history with the Leaders’ Summit, ensuring that business recommendations are presented directly to heads of state and government. Organisers anticipate it will be the largest business-focused event ever held within a COP’s official Blue Zone the secure area where formal negotiations take place signalling a permanent shift in how private-sector voices are integrated into global climate governance.

The groundwork was laid earlier this year with the inaugural COP31 Business Forum meeting in London on June 22. Since then, the structure has expanded to embed business leadership at every stage: from defining priorities in working groups, through refining proposals on the Advisory Board, to delivering actionable commitments to presidents and prime ministers in Antalya. Under the leadership of COP31 Private Sector Envoy TOBB, and alongside co-host Australia, best practices and implementation-oriented recommendations will flow directly into the official UN negotiation channels ensuring that what businesses are doing on the ground shapes what governments agree to in the room.

For decades, climate negotiations have been led and defined by governments. Progress has been real, but gaps between promise and practice remain wide. COP31 is designed to narrow those gaps by bringing the engines of the global economy capital, innovation, supply chains, and operational expertise into the centre of the process. The Action Agenda provides the destination; the business roadmap being forged in New York provides the vehicle. As the world grapples with rising emissions, extreme weather, and uneven green transition, the message is clear: no government can deliver the scale of change required alone.

From New York to Antalya, the path is being laid for a different kind of climate conference one where implementation is as central as negotiation, and where business leadership is not just invited, but relied upon. The roadmap being written this week will be judged not by how many words it contains, but by how many actions it inspires.