PM issues ultimatum to Turkey on next year’s climate talks
Bowen is set to meet his Turkish counterpart on Tuesday morning as a last resort to end the deadlock.
He said at Sydney airport on Saturday that many of Australia’s allies and all members of the UN group known as the Western European and Others Group backed the proposal.
“It remains the case that Australia has the overwhelming support of the world to host COP31,” Bowen said. “This means we have to reach an agreement with Türkiye… it’s difficult.”
Sources not authorized to speak publicly said Bowen told cabinet colleagues that he had offered Türkiye some participation in exchange for withdrawing its offer to host the conference. Australia could offer to abandon the so-called pre-COP talks, or meeting of world leaders normally held in the first week of talks, but this year it took place days before talks were due to start.
Thom Woodroofe, senior international fellow at Australia’s Smart Energy Council and a former climate diplomat based in Belém, said he saw no signs of Australia backing down in its efforts to secure hosting rights.
Woodroofe said, “Turks continue to ask for the impossible. There is no way there can be a ‘co-presidency’ according to UNFCCC rules, and it is not even conceptually feasible for two countries on opposite sides of the world, with very different priorities and experiences on the climate crisis, to manage something as complex as the COP under a unified umbrella.”
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“No one here in Belem is under any false pretense of delaying a deal, just as this delay is having an impact on the most important meeting for many countries in the world, far beyond the Pacific. Just as no one is under any false pretense that Australia would be absolutely prepared to see this through, given the overwhelming support it continues to receive and which shows no signs of changing.”
Also speaking from Belem, Petter Lydén, head of international relations at the German non-profit environmental and foreign affairs organization Germanwatch, said he was aware that Germany was trying to help resolve the impasse through third parties and that Germany’s preference was for Australia to host the talks.
“Australia may be preferred to Türkiye not only in terms of climate but also in terms of democratic criteria,” he said.
