Food & Climate
Turkey will host the Cop31 climate conference after the Australian government dropped its push to hold the event in Adelaide at the last moment despite having invested in a more than three-year campaign.
But Australia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, is expected to lead climate negotiations at the summit in Turkey’s Mediterranean resort city of Antalya in November 2026 under a compromise deal to resolve a standoff between the two countries.
Australia has now agreed to support the Turkish bid in return for their minister chairing the talks…This unusual arrangement has taken observers by surprise.
It is normal for a COP president to be from the host country and how this new partnership will work in practice remains to be seen.
Australia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, is expected to lead climate negotiations at the summit, according to reports seen by Food & Climate.
Bowen told journalists the unprecedented deal could involve a pre-COP31 event on a Pacific island…Turkey assuming the COP presidency as hosts and Australia being appointed ‘president for negotiations’, according to BBC.
Observers said in practice it could mean the Turks were effectively event managers, including for the world’s largest green technology trade fair, while Australia led the talks on how to combat the climate crisis.”
Last-minute negotiations over hosting COP31
The arrangement was negotiated in meetings between Bowen and the Turkish climate minister, Murat Kurum, at the Cop30 conference in the Brazilian city of Belém.
Details were still being finalised on Wednesday night local time before an announcement expected on Thursday.
Papua New Guinea has announced that it is “dissatisfied” with Australia’s withdrawal from hosting COP31.
Bowen told journalists the unprecedented deal could involve a pre-Cop31 event on a Pacific island that would be a pledging event for a Pacific resilience fund, Turkey assuming the Cop presidency as hosts, and Australia being appointed “president for negotiations”.
Observers said in practice it could mean the Turks were effectively event managers, including for the world’s largest green technology trade fair, while Australia led the talks on how to combat the climate crisis.
Bowen said this outcome could elevate the interests of the Pacific and Australia and support multilateralism, which has been under threat. Pacific nations had been promised that if Australia’s bid were successful they would be co-hosts, and that there would be a significant focus on the threat the climate crisis poses to their survival.
“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 [the UN climate headquarters] in Bonn. That would mean 12 months with a lack of leadership.
“That would be irresponsible for multilateralism and this challenged environment. And we didn’t want that to happen. So hence, it was important to strike an agreement with Turkey.”
A disappointing agreement for many countries
Reaching a settlement in which Australia gives up to Turkey to host the next climate conference, COP31, was a major disappointment for climate activists and clean industry investors who had been demanding that the event be hosted in Australia since the Labor Party announced its plan to run in 2021, while it was still in opposition.
Pacific leaders also expressed frustration. Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister, Justin Tkatchenko, said he was “not at all happy with result”.
But some long-term observers of climate talks said the result – if it worked – may have been the best result possible this week, given that Turkey had refused to withdraw. Australia had strong international support to host what would have been the first Cop in the Pacific, and only the sixth out of 30 in the southern hemisphere.
The Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, had signalled a change in his messaging on hosting the world’s biggest climate meeting in a press conference in Perth late on Tuesday, local time, when he said his government would not block Turkey’s bid if it were chosen.
Some longtime observers at climate negotiations interpreted Albanese’s comments as undermining the Australia-Pacific bid and leaving Bowen to sort out the details. They noted that Albanese had not attended a year-ending climate conference since becoming prime minister.
His intervention on Tuesday came just hours after Bowen declared in a public event and media interview at Cop30 that Australia was “in it to win it” on Cop31.