Australia’s failed bid to host Cop31 looks like a mess – but it may actually be the best result possible | Adam Morton

Ouch. From one perspective, Australia’s long-standing bid to host next year’s COP31 UN climate conference has ended in glaring failure.

He has campaigned for more than three years for the right to host the world’s largest climate summit and green show, which would have drawn tens of thousands of people to Adelaide, South Australia’s capital, next November.

This doesn’t happen. Instead, the conference known as Cop31 is heading to the resort city of Antalya on the Turkish Mediterranean.

The result will be a major disappointment for many who hoped that hosting the climate carnival could help Australia accelerate the transition from a fossil fuel economy to a renewable energy superpower, and focus international attention on the existential plight facing the Pacific island nations, which would have been co-hosts.

The process that led to the failure was an opaque mess. In recent days, doubts have emerged as to whether Anthony Albanese and other high-ranking figures really want the offer to go through. The Prime Minister’s language has sent, at best, mixed messages. This resulted in reports in Australian and international media claiming the government was withdrawing.

This contrasted with the message relayed during the Cop30 negotiations in the Brazilian city of Belem, where Australian climate change minister Chris Bowen had just declared the country was “here to win”.

Uncertain support is not a new problem for Australia’s Cop31 bid. Although Bowen defended it, other senior government officials only occasionally seemed to care.

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The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, traditionally responsible for international climate negotiations, has been disengaged and sometimes outright opposed.

There is no indication that Albanese considers UN climate conferences a priority. He has not participated since becoming prime minister in 2022. He could have done more to push the bid through.

This is the negative point of view. But there is another way of looking at things.

In the context of this week’s Cop30 negotiations in Brazil – and from an international perspective – Wednesday night’s announcement might, perversely, have been the best possible outcome.

Bowen on Wednesday outlined an unprecedented deal he was working on with his Turkish counterpart, Murat Kurum. Turkey would be COP chair, host and effective organizer of the event, and Australia – Bowen himself – would take on the role of “negotiations chair”, pitting nearly 200 countries against each other on the issues they are actually running for: talks on how to collectively tackle the climate crisis.

There would also be a greater emphasis on the Pacific, including holding a preparatory event in an island nation.

There are many reasons to be skeptical. Turkey and Australia do not have close relations. Details of the deal were not finalized as of this writing. The whole thing could collapse before it even begins.

But it could also be a way to salvage something useful from what looked like a looming car crash for multilateral work on climate change.

Turkey is widely seen by the international community as having worked to wreak havoc on the UN climate process. The system is supposed to work by consensus. Usually this means that if there are multiple countries in the race, those with less support voluntarily withdraw or a deal is quietly made to encourage them to leave the race.

Turkey clearly had less support than Australia and the Pacific Islands to host Cop31. At least 24 of the 28 countries responsible for naming next year’s host country (from the Western Europe group and others) supported the southern bid.

But, uniquely, Turkey refused to give in. The word “bastardy” has been used repeatedly in recent days, and not just by Australians.

Turkey’s obstinacy can be interpreted as a reflection of a conflicting geopolitical climate. With the absence of the United States under Donald Trump, no major power had the clout to stare down the oil producers who were providing some cover for the Turks.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is considered close to Vladimir Putin. Some countries feared a summit-hampered conference if his government led the negotiations. And the Germans did not want to have to organize an ill-prepared Cop31 at the UN climate headquarters in Bonn, which would have happened under UN rules if the impasse had not been broken.

A path through was necessary. The United Nations system is imperfect and often disconcerting to observe, but multilateral action has empirically made a difference in the fight against global warming. The Türkiye-Australia deal is a creative idea that helps maintain this momentum when it is needed more than ever.

Despite understandable criticism of the Australian government over its hypocritical support for expanding fossil fuel exports, climate activists who attend UN conferences see Bowen as a force for good in the negotiations. He was asked to co-chair the negotiating streams of each of the four conferences he attended.

It’s important. While some have dismissed the role of a “negotiations chair”, Erwin Jackson, of Monash University’s Climateworks Center and a veteran observer of climate negotiations, says it is essential to their success.

“Each successful Cop has been determined by a president who holds the pen, who knows how to listen, build consensus and produce an ambitious result. We saw it in Berlin in 1995, in Cancun in 2010 and in Paris in 2015. We saw the opposite in Copenhagen in 2009,” he says. “That’s the most important role of the Cop, other than making sure people have food.”

There are many unanswered questions. For example, civil society plays an essential role during climate conferences. What, if anything, can the Australian government do to prevent a crackdown on civil society by Turkish leaders?

Maybe not much. But that doesn’t stop this deal from looking like an opportunity to hold a summit that could deliver something for the Pacific, Australia and the world. It’s worth a try.