Australia risks undermining efforts to establish itself as a leader in the green energy transition and letting down its vulnerable Pacific island neighbours if its bid to host next year’s biggest climate summit fails, diplomats and analysts say.
Australia was long considered the front-runner to hold the COP31 conference, aiming to bolster its ambitions to become “a renewable energy superpower” and highlight issues faced by Pacific island nations which it plans to cohost the conference with.
However, Turkey doubled down on a rival bid, saying it wants a summit that more directly tackles financing for developing countries’ climate efforts while showcasing its own progress toward a 2053 net zero emissions target. That has led to an attention-sapping impasse that must be overcome at this year’s COP30 meeting underway in Belem, Brazil.
The annual COP — or Conference of the Parties — is the world’s main forum for driving climate action.
INVESTMENT PLATFORM
The host matters, because it sets the agenda and leads the diplomacy needed to reach global agreements, while drumming up investment for new green initiatives.
Australia is pivoting away from coal and gas power to renewables, and is seeking investment in critical minerals, green steel and transition technologies such as batteries.
“Hosting COP is absolutely crucial for Australia’s economic future,” said Wesley Morgan, a climate academic at the University of New South Wales. “We are a major commodities and fossil fuel exporter. If we stick our heads in the sand and pretend there is no transition, we will lose out. Without COP we would lose out on investment, jobs and economic growth.”
COPs have grown over the years from diplomatic gatherings into vast trade shows where host countries can promote economic prospects.
“There is a clear and compelling case for investment attractiveness for hosting COP in Australia,” said Emma Herd, a partner at EY’s Net Zero Centre.
“We have the opportunities and need the capital. COP provides the platform to showcase those opportunities,” Herd said.
For Australia, there is also the diplomatic goal of improving relations with island nations that are strategically located in the Pacific and are also being courted by China.
“This is a remarkable geopolitical opportunity for our country,” Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen told reporters last week. “The climate is the No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 issue for Pacific Islands.”
Advocacy by Pacific nations was central to the world agreeing in 2015 at COP21 in Paris to limit global warming to 1.5°C, and many supporters of Australia’s bid think a Pacific COP would drive more ambitious action.
“The big opportunity of the COP is this is the most profound opportunity we’ve ever had to demonstrate that we are the partner of choice for the Pacific,” said a former climate diplomat in Australia, who declined to be identified.
Former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern, a special envoy for Oceania at COP30, said Pacific leaders are still working hard to host the conference.
“The slogan from the Pacific is: ‘1.5 to stay alive.’ It’s literally that proximate for the Pacific,” she told Reuters in Belem. “The Pacific were critical in achieving the aspiration and the target and the goal of 1.5, but now they’re critical to its maintenance.”
Protracted struggles over hosting are uncommon, with a venue usually settled 18 or 24 months in advance. Indeed, Ethiopia was confirmed this week as venue for COP32 in 2027.
UN rules require unanimity among the 28-strong group of countries whose turn it is to host COP31. If neither Australia nor Turkey compromises, hosting duties would default to Bonn, Germany, which houses the UN’s climate headquarters.
“We would have to [host],” said Jochen Flasbarth, state secretary at the German Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety.
“But we do not want to,” he added.
DEADLOCK
In Belem, Australia’s and Turkey’s pavilions are in prime position and side-by-side. However, the two nations have struggled to connect.
Australia assumed Turkey was not a serious bidder for COP31 given strong support for Australia’s bid and could be coaxed into withdrawing, said David Dutton, who until September was Australia’s assistant secretary of climate diplomacy.
Some observers thought Turkey would drop its bid if Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government won re-election against a climate change-skeptic opposition earlier this year, but Turkey instead upped its efforts.
Turkey dropped a previous bid to host COP26 and has said it does not want to withdraw again. The country’s expectation about hosting was entrenched after it signed onto the Paris climate accord and thinks its odds have improved, a Turkish diplomatic source said in Belem.
Albanese wrote to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a few weeks ago seeking to break the impasse, and said on Thursday that Erdogan had written back and was “maintaining his position.”
Turkish officials did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the negotiations.
Turkey has said it would prioritize financing of poorer countries’ efforts to meet climate goals and says its Mediterranean location would reduce emissions from flights bringing delegates to the conference.
One potential compromise is for Australia and Turkey to split hosting duties, with Turkey reportedly keen to host the global leaders’ summit, said Dutton, now director of research at the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank.
The uncertainty has prevented Australian officials from switching attention to organizing next year’s conference, Dutton said.
“All the effort has been around the bid and not so much about what you’re actually going to do to sustain climate momentum,” he added.
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