Turkey will host the UN Cop 31 UN climate summit next year, while Australia will lead negotiations, Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese announced today.
The conference and Cop presidency will go to Turkey, while Australia's climate and energy minister Chris Bowen will be Cop president for negotiations, Albanese said in a radio interview with Australia's ABC Perth.
This compromise marks the end of a prolonged tussle between the two countries over hosting rights for next year's summit.
"We're in a situation where it would not have advantaged multilateral action on climate change if we couldn't even agree on where a conference was, would have been a real setback," Albanese said. "So, what we've come up with is a big win for both Australia and Turkey."
If the countries had not reached an agreement during the ongoing Cop 30 summit in Brazil, next year's summit would have been held at the UN climate change secretariat's headquarters in Bonn, Germany.
"Australia's motivation in bidding to host Cop 31 has always been to elevate the views and the interests of our Pacific brothers and sisters, and to support multilateralism, particularly as it comes under criticism," Bowen said.
"There will be a pre-Cop meeting, particularly focusing on climate financing in the Pacific, the Pacific Resilience Facility, in the lead-up to Cop next year, held in the Pacific. Australia will of course assist with that as well," Albanese said. The Pacific Resilience Facility is a regional financing initiative established by the Pacific Islands Forum to build resilience against the impacts of climate change and the frequent natural disasters that hit the region.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia is on track to win its bid to host the Cop 32 summit in 2027 in its capital, Addis Ababa. The African Group has endorsed the country and the upcoming decision at Cop 30 to pick Ethiopia for the 2027 summit should just be a formality.
