Australia has failed in its bid to host COP31 in Adelaide, forced to cede the right of hosting the next UN climate talks to Türkiye following a game of brinkmanship that took the standoff almost to the end of the current climate conference.
Speaking to reporters at roughly 7.30pm on Thursday in Belém, (9.30am on Friday on Australia’s east coast), Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen confirmed that Türkiye would host COP31 in the resort town of Antalya on the Mediterranean coast.
“Obviously it would be great if Australia could have it all. But we can’t have it all,” Bowen said.
“This process works on consensus and consensus means, if someone objected to our bid, it would go to Bonn. That would mean 12 months with a lack of leadership. No COP President in place, no plan. That would be irresponsible for multilateralism and this challenged environment.
“And we didn’t want that to happen.”
Under the arrangement negotiated with Türkiye, pre-COP meetings will take place on a yet to be decided Pacific Island, a pledging event will be held for the Pacific Resilience Fund. Australia will also act as COP President For the Purposes of Negotiations, with Bowen serving in that role.
Türkiye would handle the COP venue and its operation, Bowen said, though some details about how it would operate would still need to be worked out.
The decision provoked a mixed reaction, with some such as the Smart Energy Council’s John Grimes saying Australia had “given in” to blackmail, and the Australian Industry Group also noting it “fell short” of expectations.
The SEC still wants Australia to hold a massive trade fair to show off its renewable credentials, particularly in South Australia. Others argue that even without the trade fair, Australia still has a critical role to play as head of negotiations in the usually difficult world of climate politics.
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Bowen said “Australia has huge support” for its bid, but holding out threatened to undermine the COP process and global climate action.
“I know some people will be disappointed in that outcome. Other people, of course, would be even more disappointed if it had gone to Bonn without a cop president in place,” he said.
If hosting of the COP had defaulted to Bonn, Germany, Brazil would have continued on as COP President.
The result came after a confusing twelve hours in Belém, Brazil where the Australian delegation repeatedly denied reports the bid had been abandoned and insisted negotiations remained ongoing until the bitter end.
Australian delegation officials stuck to this line until around 6pm local time on Thursday in Belém (8am on Friday on Australia’s east coast) even after both Bloomberg and The Guardian Australia cited unnamed sources saying the bid had been lost, and members of the Turkish delegation were overheard celebrating.
These followed an earlier report from Nine’s South Australian state reporter on Thursday night in Australia citing a single, unnamed government source claiming the bid had been lost.
David Ritter, CEO at Greenpeace Australia Pacific said the result showed the Australian government was “not fighting hard enough for our future.”
“Whatever the forum, whoever the President, the urgency and focus cannot change, and phasing out fossil fuels and ending deforestation must be at the core of the COP31 agenda,” he said.
Gavan McFadzean from the Australia Conservation Foundation said the negotiated outcome ensured Pacific Islands communities could get something out of the bargain, but that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had erred in making the bid.
“We’re disappointed that Prime Minister Albanese didn’t pull out all the stops necessary to maximise Australia’s chances of getting the COP,” he said. “We think that it was a mistake that he didn’t attend the leaders’ meeting.”
Note: Updated with reporting from Sydney.
