Clean energy COP hits fossil fuel phase-out demands
Electrification and clean energy have been highlighted by the Australian leader of international climate talks as a leading green group demands progress on the transition to fossil fuels.
Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen used his opening speech at mid-year climate talks to highlight the “fragility of fossil fuel supply chains”.
“In a world of geopolitical uncertainty and energy shortages, transition is not a risk,” he said in Bonn, Germany, which has long hosted the intersessional United Nations climate summit.
“This is a solution and a tremendous opportunity.”
The 2026 Conference of the Parties conference will take place in Türkiye’s southern Antalya province, but is the result of a diplomatic compromise reached between rival bidders, with Australia leading negotiations and Pacific island nations hosting pre-COP events.
Since then, the conflict that has threatened to escalate in the Middle East triggered the largest oil shock in history and turned attention to energy security.
Mr Bowen and his Turkish counterpart, COP31 president Murat Kurum, frame transport electrification and renewables as responses to energy supply chain shocks and geopolitical ruptures.
But groups such as Greenpeace Australia Pacific are also seeking leadership on a key perceived shortcoming at the COP30 event in Brazil in 2025: the lack of progress on a global roadmap away from fossil fuels.
“While Australia’s conversation has focused strongly on the limitations of fossil fuels and supply chains amid the current energy shock, the COP31 vision and agenda that will truly enable the transition away from fossil fuels is still missing,” said environmental group Pacific chair Shiva Gounden.
“Every successful COP has depended on a strong president, and Bonn is an important moment for the next presidency to start shaping the vision.”
Outside the formal UN climate diplomacy process, a group of countries, including several Pacific nations, are pushing hard for progress on the fossil fuel transition; Brazil is using its ongoing COP30 presidency role to continue negotiations.
More than 50 countries, including Australia, attended the first conference on phasing out fossil fuels, co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands in April.
Australia also signed the Belem Declaration, a voluntary commitment to a “fair, orderly and equitable” roadmap away from fossil fuels that was brokered on the sidelines of the COP30 talks when a formal consensus could not be reached.
Mr. Bowen’s opening remarks also touched on the importance of implementation, adaptation, financing, just transition and ocean-based climate action.
Countries have also been asked to submit their updated Nationally Determined Contributions for 2035 ahead of COP31 after many states missed deadlines for emissions reduction plans ahead of the 2025 talks.
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