‘Culture cringe’: experts dismiss Coalition claims Chris Bowen cannot remain minister while leading Cop31 negotiations | Environment

Experts have rejected claims Chris Bowen cannot remain senior minister while playing a leading role in international climate negotiations; one described the claim as evidence of Australia’s “cultural embarrassment”.

Australia has failed in its long-standing bid to host the COP31 climate summit with Pacific nations next year after Türkiye refused to withdraw from the reconciliation process despite limited support.

Negotiations at the UN COP30 summit in Brazil reached an unprecedented agreement under which Türkiye would host and run the event, including a major green trade fair in the resort city of Antalya, while Bowen, an Australian climate change and energy minister, would be appointed vice-president and “chairman of negotiations”.

By agreementBowen will be given “exclusive authority with respect to negotiations” among nearly 200 countries, starting immediately. His role will include chairing the pre-Cop31 meeting in the Pacific late next year.

The coalition attacked Bowen over his appointment, claiming he would be a “part-time minister” as Australians face high energy prices. It is expected to focus on the issue this week, which is the last session of the parliament this year.

Climate experts said it was not unusual for a minister to remain in his local post while serving as chairperson overseeing the annual global climate summit known as the Cop (an acronym for the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change).

Seven of the 10 Police officers retained since the landmark Paris agreement was reached in 2015 are led by government ministers who retain domestic roles, one by a prime minister and one by a senior diplomat.

The 10th meeting, held in Glasgow in 2021, was led by Alok Sharma, who was the UK minister for business, energy and industrial strategy when he was appointed as head of the Police. He later left the ministry and became full-time chairman, but remained in the UK cabinet.

Erwin Jackson, an experienced observer of climate talks now at Monash University’s Climateworks centre, said Sharma’s role was bigger than Bowen’s because he hosted the summit in the UK and the Glasgow conference was a “decision-making Cop” that required the leader to spend the year mobilizing a global effort on new emissions reduction targets.

By comparison, COP31 will focus on implementing commitments, staying together and improving the fragile agreement reached in Brazil.

Jackson said Antalya will not be a major conference where countries are expected to make important decisions, as in Paris, Glasgow or Kyoto, where the first agreement to limit emissions was made in 1997.

“Sharma has been traveling around the world trying to get countries to commit to net zero. Bowen doesn’t need to do that,” he said.

Jackson said it was in Australia’s national interest for the world to take action on climate change and that suggesting an Australian minister could not lead negotiations was an example of “culture shame and tall poppy syndrome”.

“While ministers from all over the world have been doing this job for over 30 years, an Australian minister can certainly do this job,” he said.

“Over the last 40 years of negotiations Australia has been a climate pariah; [Paul] Keating all the way [Scott] Morrison. The fact that Australia now has the support of the world’s most progressive climate countries in Western Europe and the Pacific is something we should celebrate.

“Let’s focus on whether the minister of the day is doing his job and discuss the merits of the matter, not his daily schedule.”

Richie Merzian, chief executive of the Clean Energy Investor Group and a former climate diplomat, said Bowen could do both jobs and argued ministers were already juggling multiple roles, including as local MPs.

“It’s not a pretty situation because there’s no precedent, but it can be done and if anyone can do it it’s probably Bowen,” Merzian said. “It would be worse if a new minister comes in because we have to deliver.” [clean energy] transition.”

Howard Bamsey, former Australian special climate envoy and now an honorary professor at the ANU’s school of regulation and global governance, he said the role must have national support as Australia undertakes to lead climate negotiations, a key foreign policy task.

He said Bowen had “an extraordinarily challenging role and an extraordinarily challenging role” internationally and that his success would depend on the support he would receive from cabinet colleagues and the bureaucracy, including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. It might help if the government appoints a “ministerial quasi-representative” who reports to the minister and handles key parts of the negotiations.

“Do not underestimate the scale of the challenge facing Australia,” Bamsey said. “This will require a special effort from the government.”