🔗 Share this article

Well. From one perspective, Australia's long-running bid to host the UN climate conference next year has concluded unsuccessfully.

It campaigned for more than three years for the rights to put on the largest global environmental conference and green trade fair, which would have brought tens of thousands of people to the South Australian capital next November.

This won't occur. Rather, the summit known as the UN climate meeting is headed to the tourist destination of the Turkish coastal city, on the Turkish Mediterranean.

Letdown and Mixed Messages

The result will be a significant disappointment to many people who had hoped hosting the environmental gathering could help speed up the country's transition from being a fossil fuel economy to a clean energy leader, and bring global attention to the survival crisis facing island countries in the Pacific, who would have been co-hosts.

The procedure that led to failure has been an unclear situation. Recently, there have been questions that Anthony Albanese and other senior figures truly desired the bid to succeed. The prime minister's language were ambiguous at best. This led to stories in the local and global press saying the government was withdrawing.

This differed from the message being conveyed at the climate negotiations in the Brazilian city, where the environment minister, the climate minister, had just declared the country was "in it to win it".

Uncertain support is not a new issue for Australia's Cop31 bid. Although Bowen championed it, other high-level figures of the administration have only sometimes appeared to be interested.

DFAT, traditionally responsible for global environmental talks, has been uninvolved and at times completely against.

There is little sign the prime minister has viewed UN climate conferences a important focus. He has missed one since taking office in 2022. We'll never know, but many may question if additional efforts were possible to secure the hosting rights.

A Different Perspective

That's the negative take. But there is another way to consider it.

In the context the Cop30 talks this week in Brazil – and from an global viewpoint – the decision on Wednesday night may, ironically, have been the most favorable outcome possible.

Bowen set out on Wednesday an novel agreement that he was working on with his colleague from Turkey, the Turkish minister. The Turkish government would be the conference leader, host and primary coordinator, and the Australian delegation – Bowen himself – would take on the position as "president of negotiations", managing nearly 200 countries on the stuff that the countries actually attend for – the talks on how to collectively address the environmental emergency.

There would also be a greater focus on the Pacific region, including a preliminary meeting on an Pacific island.

Grounds for Scepticism

Multiple reasons exist for scepticism. Turkey and Australia do not have a strong partnership. The details of the agreement had not been finalized at the time of writing. The entire arrangement could collapse before it gets started.

However, it might represent a way to salvage something useful from what looked like an impending disaster for the multilateral work on global warming.

Turkey is generally viewed in the global community as having been hellbent on causing havoc in the international climate negotiations. This framework is designed to operate by unanimous agreement. Usually, that means if there are several nations in the competition those with less support either bow out voluntarily, or a deal is privately arranged to encourage them to step aside.

Turkey clearly had less support than the joint Pacific proposal to organize the summit. At least 24 of the 28 nations responsible for selecting next year's venue had backed the Australian bid.

However, uniquely, Turkey refused to yield. The word "bastardry" has been used frequently in recent days, and not just by Australians.

Geopolitical Context

Ankara's stubbornness can be read as a manifestation of the fracturing geopolitical climate. Without US participation under the former president, there has been no major power with the influence to stare down the petroleum exporters that provided the Turks with certain protection.

President Erdoğan is considered aligned with Vladimir Putin. Several nations worried about a summit obstructed from the leadership if his administration led the discussions. And the Germans did not want to have to host an underprepared Cop31 at the UN environmental office in the German city, which is what would have occurred under UN rules if the stalemate wasn't resolved.

A Creative Solution

A path through was needed. International frameworks is imperfect and often unsettling to watch, but multilateral action has empirically had an impact in the fight against global heating. This joint approach is a innovative solution that keeps that going when it is needed more than ever.

Notwithstanding reasonable concerns of the Australian government over its contradictory stance for increasing fossil fuel exports, climate activists who participate in UN conferences see the minister as a force for good in the negotiations. He has been requested to lead negotiation streams at each of the four conferences he has attended.

This matters. While some have dismissed the role of a "chief negotiator", experts from academic institutions and veteran observers at climate talks say it is crucial to their positive outcome.

"Every successful Cop has been determined by a leader holding the pen who can understand, build consensus and deliver an ambitious outcome. This occurred in Berlin in 1995, in Cancún in 2010 and Paris in 2015. We saw the opposite in the Danish city in 2009," they note. "This position is critical at the Cop except for making sure that people have food."

Unanswered Questions

There are plenty of unresolved issues. For example, non-governmental organizations plays a vital role at environmental summits. How, if anything, can the Australian government do to stop a restriction on civil society by the Turkish leadership?

Possibly little. But that doesn't stop this arrangement looking like the best chance available to have a summit that may provide benefits for the Pacific, Australia and the world. This attempt is justified.