Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has insisted “real and rapid progress is possible” from COP31 as international climate negotiations get underway in Turkey.
Albanese flew into the Mediterranean resort town of Antalya on Turkey’s southern coast on Tuesday where he linked action on climate change to a stronger economy during an address to the leaders summit.
“We must ensure we are heading towards a future where our energy is clean, reliable and affordable, and our economies are strong,” he said. “While the Paris Agreement is under pressure, its call to arms can still be heard.”
At no point did Albanese mention the words “fossil fuels”.
This marked the start of day two in the Conference of the Parties (COP) process where Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will steer negotiations as COP co-President for Negotiations.
COP kicked off on Monday with a somewhat chaotic start as thousands of attendees were left waiting outside as they struggled to register and make it through security as the official opening ceremony began.
Tens of thousands of people have registered to attend COP31 this year – one count put the provisional number at 92,934.
The sudden influx has put an obvious strain on Antalya’s transport systems, with locals and visitors alike frustrated by road closures, heavy traffic, packed buses, long travel times, confused drivers and infrequent services in the evening.
The Turkish government, however, has gone all-out in its role as host. Once inside, free fruit and chocolate is handed out in the morning upon arrival to those who skipped breakfast to cram into the buses or a tram, and the government has sought out the best chefs to run food stalls. Baklava, at certain times of day, is handed out for free.
Over in the exhibition hall, the arrangement of national pavilions is revealing for what it says about shifting power dynamics. Where Brazil had arranged for the Turkish and Australian pavilions to be next to each other as negotiations over who would host COP31 continued until the eleventh hour the situation in Antalya makes clear who is in charge.
The Turkish pavilion, the largest and tallest by a considerable margin, sits pride of place in the main intersection, with the Australian pavilion, looking much the same as it has in previous years, on the opposite side of the intersection.
True to form, Australia has deployed its coffee shop, soft-power diplomacy to devastating effect, with queues forming up to 45 minutes before it opens.
Australia may not have succeeded in its bid to host COP31 in Adelaide, but a Turkish government official waiting in line for a flat white privately acknowledged there was something special about the way Australia does coffee.
That, however, has not been the line taken by the Murdoch papers who, in an era of strained newsroom budgets, have dispatched a reporter to investigate the coffee queue at the Australia Pavillion.
In the opening days of the conference, News Corp has staked out the coffee queue to take voxpops of earnest and unsuspecting attendees who have been asked how much they appreciate the effort.
These interviews are then stitched together into angry videos about how giving out free lattes to foreigners with funny accents and nice suits is a waste of taxpayers money.
With the actual work of the COP process now underway, both Australia and Turkey have been at considerable pains to promote the voluntary action-agenda, overseen by Turkey, and its calls for greater electrification.
Turkey, and Australia by extension, are calling on countries to adopt a voluntary target that would electrify 35% of the world by 2035, up from 20% today. It is a commitment that squares neatly with Australia’s relentless focus on the holy trinity of electric vehicles, home batteries and solar, and the global geopolitical climate that has made electrification into a national security issue.
So far, however, uptake on the commitment has been slow with European countries in particular giving the pledge a frosty reception because the text does not specify that electricity must be from “clean” sources.
As in previous years, climate finance and the fate of fossil fuels remain sources of tension, though not for Finland which announced a plan to phase out oil, gas and coal on Tuesday.
The reveal cut a sharp contrast to the position taken by Australia and other countries that have positioned themselves as climate leaders.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan excitedly announced the discovery of two new oil fields as COP31 was getting underway. Previous COP host, Brazil, has refused to rule out future fossil fuel developments, despite overseeing the development of a voluntary “roadmap” for phasing out fossil fuels.
The United Kingdom, meanwhile, has begun re-starting production at legacy gas fields and Canada has walked back many of its ambitious climate commitments.
In Australia’s case, the government has made meaningful contradictions to the Belém Report on phasing out fossil fuels, but continues to approve new oil, gas and coal projects, including a massive extension to the HVO coal mine in New South Wales.
The resistance to talking straight on the reality of what addressing climate change might mean can be explained in part by a view within the Australian diplomatic service that no transformative change on the scale of the Paris Climate Agreement is possible without the United States.
Donald Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement for the second time in 2025. The feeling is that Australia, and perhaps some other countries, are biding time waiting for the end of the Trump administration for a more favourable international environment.
But with the world having breached the 1.5°C threshold set under the Paris Climate Agreement, and the possibility of escalating climate disasters as recently illustrated in Nepal – where 10,000 people died and 10% of national GDP was wiped out in ten minutes – the laws of physics will eventually override the demands of international relations.
And for the next two weeks Australia, with Chris Bowen as its chosen representative, will find itself the focus of global pressures in a historical moment that demands action and where there’s little patience for empty rhetoric.
