Australia and Turkey, the co-presidents of this year's Cop 31 climate summit, should commit to coal phase-out dates and publish national roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels, climate advocacy group 350.org said.
The organisation said Australia and Turkey are among the few industrialised countries without coal phase-out dates, while acknowledging differences in their wealth and historical responsibility for climate change. It also criticised the absence of any reference to fossil fuels in official Cop 31 presidential communications.
Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan should announce long-overdue coal phase-out dates at home, 350.org's head of political strategy said.
"Cop 31 and national roadmaps on transitioning away from fossil fuel production and consumption provide an opportunity to rectify this glaring gap," the organisation said.
Turkey will host Cop 31 in Antalya on 9-20 November, while Australia will lead the negotiations. Global electrification will be at the centre of Turkey's Cop 31 action agenda, a parallel process to the formal negotiations aimed at accelerating implementation. But some countries and civil society organisations have argued that the effort should focus on clean energy sources.
Australia is the world's second-largest coal exporter after Indonesia, while Turkey is the seventh-largest coal importer, according to the IEA.
Fossil fuel interests in both countries are standing in the way of the leadership needed to fulfil the goals of the Paris climate agreement and help limit warming to 1.5°C, according to 350.org.
Turkey imported more than 28mn t of coking coal, thermal coal and other coal from Australia during 2015-25, the organisation said, citing UN Comtrade and OECD trade data. Australian independent Woodside Energy has also signed an LNG agreement with Turkey's state-controlled oil and gas company Botas for the supply of about 5.8bn m³ of natural gas equivalent for up to nine years from 2030.
The Paris Agreement aims to keep the increase in global temperatures well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C. Countries at the Cop 28 summit in Dubai in 2023 recognised the need for "deep, rapid and sustained reductions" in greenhouse gas emissions in line with the 1.5°C goal.
