Adelaide will not host next year's COP summit, but Australia's energy minister, Chris Bowen, will lead the negotiations, and a pre-event will be hosted by a Pacific Island nation.

**In short: **

Australia will allow Türkiye to host COP31 next year but Chris Bowen will lead negotiations there.

The Albanese government had been locked in a long stand-off with Türkiye over hosting, with the official rules requiring global consensus on a host.

A pre-COP event will be hosted by a Pacific Island nation.

  • Ben Matthews@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    2·
    15 days ago

    Can see reasons why this compromise makes sense:

    • Flying so many participants to Adelaide would result in much greater CO2 emissions, while Türkiye is much closer to the centre of gravity of global population.
    • The Australian team has support of a better scientific capacity (like CSIRO), motivation from the network of small islands, and the language helps run such negotiations (although a pity it’s like that).
    • Both countries have a high vulnerability to climate change impacts - drought.
    • But the Australians don’t want too much scrutiny of their high per-capita emissions and coal exports.
    • While Türkiye is not a fossil-fuel exporter (unlike previous 3 COP hosts in middle east), and has a relatively large young population, so the ‘enthusiasm’ generated by hosting the COP may help build long-term capacity lacking in that region.

    However, pity Türkiye choose Antalya, a haven for russian oligarch sunbathers, and doesn’t even have a railway.
    And, zooming out, pity the system of UN regions, and in general the system of COPs is so crazy.