Australia loses bid to host to Turkey after three-year campaign
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Concessions?
A pre-COP summit will be held somewhere in the Pacific next year, and Australia will use it to raise funding for the Pacific Resilience Fund from participants.
Bowen will serve as the “chairman of negotiations” in the talks in Türkiye, with the authority to determine the negotiation agenda, appoint the chairman and leaders, and prepare the draft decision text.
In his statement to the media in Belem, Bowen explained that Australia’s objectives in the proposal were to express the concerns of the Pacific and act in the country’s interests. He said that these goals would be achieved with these concessions.
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This is nothing. Anyone who has followed the UN climate negotiations closely knows that the role of those conducting these negotiations is strong and important. The Pacific will be devastated by Australia’s failure, but will not turn down any funding available from such a forum.
Bowen insists that if he had not blinked and the meeting had returned to Bonn, the result would have been a rudderless meeting with no control and no input from Australia and the Pacific.
“Some people will be disappointed with this result. Of course, others would be even more disappointed if he had gone to Bonn without a COP president. This is a better result than that.”
It is not yet clear exactly what went wrong for Australia, but it is clear that Australia’s efforts have never resembled the smooth, united and energetic campaigns that saw previous governments secure a seat on the UN Security Council in 2013 or appoint former finance minister Mathias Cormann as secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in 2021.
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For months, diplomatic observers had been warning that Bowen lacked Albania’s full and enthusiastic support for the proposal, the focus of Foreign Minister Penny Wong and the weight of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
It was noticed that Albanese did not attend the Brazilian leaders’ meeting the week before the COP.
In the days leading up to Australia’s surrender, Bowen was locked in negotiations in Brazil but still voiced his determination to win the bid, while on his return to Australia Albanese spoke like a man building a way out for himself.
“Let me be clear: we’re not going anywhere,” Bowen said Tuesday. “It’s a fight we have to do because it’s in Australia’s interest and I believe it’s in the world’s interest for Australia to be the chair of COP31. We’re working on it. That’s what we plan to do.”
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A few hours later, Albanese told the Australian media: “If Australia is not elected, if Türkiye is elected, we will not try to veto it.”
These two positions are not necessarily inconsistent, but the difference in tone was also heard in Belem. Türkiye was intransigent, Australia was floundering.
It’s unclear how much difference the prime minister’s late intervention will make.
The process requires consensus, not overwhelming support, and Türkiye will definitely not make concessions.
