Turkey holds out on Anthony Albanese, Chris Bowen from UN COP climate dream
The race to win the rights for the climate change extravaganza, which typically has cost $100m to $250m to run and attracts up to 40,000 delegates and participants, is going down to the wire.
Veteran UN climate summit watchers are perplexed the COP31 bid process has dragged on for so long and believe the wife of Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan – a climate change activist – will fight to the end.
So far government officials have tried and failed to convince their Turkish counterparts to step aside and allow Australia and its South Pacific partners to co-host COP31 – formally the 31st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change UN Climate Change Conference.
Under pressure from UN representatives to work out a deal, a critical meeting in Bonn in June failed to end the impasse between Australia and Turkey over who would claim the presidency for COP31. If a deal can’t be made, Bonn will be the compromise choice.
Some believe the government should copy the British playbook when Boris Johnson’s government effectively paid off Turkey with generous incentives to win the rights to host the 2021 COP26 conference in Glasgow.
Mrs Erdogan, whose husband has been in power for two decades, was in the news earlier this week after she wrote to Melania Trump pleading with the US first lady to speak out about the suffering of children in Gaza and appeal directly to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end “the humanitarian crisis in Gaza”.
The Prime Minister is expected to unveil the government’s long-awaited 2035 emissions reduction target in coming weeks ahead of his first UN General Assembly leaders’ summit in New York next month. The UN gathering is likely to present an opportunity for Albanese to secure support for Australia’s COP31 bid, backed by a more ambitious 2035 target of about 65 to 70 per cent.
Despite giving Scott Morrison a hard time for not turning up to COP summits (Morrison ended up going to Glasgow), Albanese has yet to attend one himself, leaving the horse-trading to Bowen.
Typically, a COP host would have already have been identified and allowed to progress planning.
Since 2022, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan have hosted UN climate change powwows. The other big question if Australia wins co-hosting rights is whether Bowen claims the role as COP president, which government insiders believe he would covet given the international profile of the job.
The Brazilian city of Belem, located at the mouth of the Amazon River, will host COP30 over 11 days in November. The drawn-out contest between Australia and Turkey is expected to be finalised by early November.
But if Australia misses out, Albanese will likely not attend as he manages a gruelling three-month overseas travel schedule expected to include stops in Port Moresby, Honiara, New York, London, Kuala Lumpur, Gyeongju and Johannesburg.
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Emine Erdogan – the first lady of Turkey – has emerged as a thorn in the sides of Anthony Albanese and Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen as the government makes its last-ditch push to host the UN’s COP31 climate change conference in Adelaide next year.