COP31's Top Sponsor Earns Most of Its Income From Oil Refining

The biggest corporate name on the COP31 banners in Antalya belongs to a company that makes most of its money refining oil. That alone isn't unusual for a UN climate summit, but the details of this sponsorship deserve a closer look than the logo gets.

Why host countries turn to sponsors

Hosting a COP is expensive, and host governments typically sell sponsorships to help cover the bill. The result is a recurring tension. The last few summits have each drawn criticism over fossil fuel ties. COP28 in Dubai was led by Sultan Al Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and COP29 was hosted by Azerbaijan, a petrostate. Campaigners had hoped COP31 would break that pattern. Instead, the headline sponsor is Koç Holding, Türkiye's largest conglomerate.

Koç is family-controlled, with interests spanning energy, cars, consumer goods and banking. Its largest earner is Tüpraş, Türkiye's biggest oil refiner. In the first half of 2026, Tüpraş's energy division produced about three-quarters of the group's income, a period when an oil supply shock pushed fuel prices sharply higher. That's a strong year for a refiner, and it makes the group's climate commitments harder to separate from its core business.

What Koç said, and what its records show

In September, the Turkish COP31 presidency presented its priorities to business leaders in New York. One of the first corporate voices invited to respond was Ali Koç, vice chair of Koç Holding and a member of one of Türkiye's wealthiest families. He told the room the company's climate record could be seen as "quite exemplary."

Climate Home News went through the company's own documents and found a less flattering picture. In 2025, Koç and Tüpraş both lowered their 2030 emissions targets to levels they had already come close to reaching. That's the detail worth dwelling on. A target you've nearly met before setting it doesn't push you to change anything. It records where you already are. Lowering a goal after you've nearly hit it can look like a reset with a new label, even when the intent isn't cynical.

Tüpraş has said it plans to keep its refineries running "at maximum potential." Read alongside the 2025 target changes, that's a statement about volume, not a transition plan. Refiners can cut operational emissions through efficiency upgrades and electrification, but a high-utilization strategy keeps the company's core output and its largest emissions category in place.

The emissions nobody has set a target for

The biggest number in this story is the one without a target. According to Carbon Credits, about 97% of Koç's carbon footprint comes from indirect Scope 3 emissions. For a refiner, these are mostly emissions from the fuel it sells, which are released when customers burn it in cars, trucks, aircraft and heating systems.

Neither Koç nor Tüpraş has set a goal to reduce them. That's a significant gap. Scope 3 is where most of an oil company's climate impact sits, and it's also the category companies find hardest to influence directly, since the emissions occur downstream. Without a target, there's no benchmark to measure progress against, and no way for an outside observer to judge whether a transition is happening or whether the company is simply reporting smaller operational numbers while its product volumes stay high.

What the hosting agreement requires

The hosting agreement between Türkiye and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change says a partner company's "climate integrity" should be taken into account. It also says Türkiye should seek the UN climate secretariat's advice when assessing potential partners. How that test was applied to Koç is unclear. Neither the secretariat nor the COP31 presidency has answered questions about the sponsorship agreement.

That silence matters. Clear criteria, published in advance, let outside groups check whether a sponsor meets the standard. Without them, the phrase "climate integrity" has no working meaning. Conflict-of-interest rules for COP sponsorships have been discussed in climate circles for years, but they haven't been applied consistently from one summit to the next.

Koç isn't the only fossil fuel thread at COP31

A report from the German nonprofit Urgewald finds that both COP31 hosts, Türkiye and Australia, are still pursuing new coal projects while leading the talks (Eco-Business). Türkiye's plans include a proposed 688-megawatt expansion of the Afşin-Elbistan A lignite power station in Kahramanmaraş. So the concern isn't limited to one sponsor. It runs through the host side as well.

Why this matters beyond Antalya

Asset managers, insurers and development banks often point to COP outcomes when they justify lending for the energy transition. They need those commitments to mean something. When the top corporate sponsor and both hosts are expanding fossil fuel supply, pledges announced at the summit are harder to take at face value. Investors and the public both have reason to discount them, and that discount falls on the whole transition agenda, not just on the companies involved.

There's a fair counterpoint. Large industrial groups in Türkiye and elsewhere are major employers and energy suppliers, and a country's energy system won't shift overnight. Refiners will also continue to supply fuel for years while the transition unfolds. The question isn't whether these companies can exist during the transition. It's whether they set credible, measurable goals for the emissions they actually produce.

What to watch in the next two weeks

Three signals will show whether the summit is taking the issue seriously. The first is whether the Turkish presidency publishes its sponsor criteria and contract terms. The second is whether Koç or Tüpraş use the conference stage to announce new targets, especially for Scope 3. The third is whether negotiators push for conflict-of-interest rules that would apply at future COPs.

The stakes extend past this year's summit. Ethiopia hosts COP32 in Addis Ababa next year, and it will inherit whatever standard Antalya sets for sponsors. If the bar stays vague, the next host will face the same questions with fewer precedents to point to. If the presidency publishes clear criteria and sponsors respond with measurable Scope 3 commitments, COP31 could become a useful reference point rather than another example of the pattern critics have been describing for years.