Turkey to host Cop31 climate conference after Australia drops push to hold it in Adelaide | Cop31

Turkey will host the COP31 climate conference after the Australian government gave up its push to hold the event in Adelaide at the last minute, despite investing in a more than three-year campaign.

But Australia’s climate change minister Chris Bowen is expected to lead climate talks at a summit in Türkiye’s Mediterranean resort city of Antalya in November 2026 as part of a compromise deal to resolve the dispute between the two countries.

The regulation was negotiated in meetings between Bowen and Turkish Climate Minister Murat Kurum at the COP30 conference in Belém, Brazil. Details were still being finalized Wednesday night local time, ahead of an announcement expected Thursday.

Bowen told reporters the unprecedented deal could include a pre-COP31 event on a Pacific island that could be a pledging event for a Pacific resilience fund, with Türkiye assuming the Polis chairmanship as host and Australia being appointed as the “negotiating chair”.

In practice, this could mean that the Turks are effectively event managers, including the world’s largest green-tech trade fair, while Australia is leading talks on how to tackle the climate crisis, observers said.

Bowen said this outcome could elevate Pacific and Australian interests and support multilateralism that was under threat. Pacific nations have been promised co-hosting if Australia’s bid is successful and there will be significant focus on the threat the climate crisis poses to their survival.

“Obviously it would be great for Australia to have it all, but we can’t have it all,” Bowen said. “This process works by consensus. And consensus means that if someone objects to our proposal, it goes to someone else.” [the UN climate headquarters] in Bonn. That means a lack of leadership for 12 months.

“This would be irresponsible in terms of multilateralism and in this difficult environment. We did not want that to happen. So it was important to reach an agreement with Türkiye.”

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The result was a huge disappointment for climate activists and clean industry investors who have been campaigning for the event to be held in Australia since Labor announced its 2021 tender plan while still in opposition. Pacific leaders also expressed disappointment. Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister, Justin Tkatchenko, said he was “not at all happy with the outcome”.

But some longtime observers of the climate talks said this week the outcome (if it works) could be the best possible one, given Türkiye’s refusal to withdraw. Australia had strong international support to host the first police in the Pacific and only the sixth of 30 in the southern hemisphere.

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese signaled a change in his message about hosting the world’s largest climate meeting at a press conference in Perth late Tuesday local time, saying his government would not block Türkiye’s bid if it is elected.

Some long-time observers of the climate talks interpreted Albanese’s comments as undermining the Australia-Pacific goal and leaving the details to Bowen. They noted that Albanese had not attended the year-end climate conference since becoming prime minister.

His intervention on Tuesday came just hours after Bowen declared at a public event and media interview at Cop30 that Australia was “ready to win” at Cop31.

Under UN rules, if the issue between Türkiye and Australia had not been resolved this week, Cop31 would have defaulted to the UN climate headquarters in Bonn, Germany. But the Germans did not want to host the negotiations, which were held alongside the world’s largest green industry fair, attended by tens of thousands of delegates.

The Australians argued that they had the open support of at least 24 of the 28 members of the “Western European and others group” countries. But they said an unprecedented stalemate that led to the event being held in Bonn could undermine confidence in the talks, and to avoid that, someone would have to broker a deal.

Australian government sources expressed frustration with the lack of transparency of the UN’s decision-making process and the lack of a resolution mechanism. Australian newspapers have reported opposition to the bid within the government, including claims that hosting COP31 could cost taxpayers more than A$1 billion.

On Thursday Albanese said it was an “extraordinary outcome” for Australia after weeks of negotiations. “Türkiye will host the conference, but Australia will be in a very strong position, some would say the strongest possible, by assuming the COP presidency for the negotiations,” he said.

South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas, who strongly backed COP31 in the state capital Adelaide, said he was disappointed and blamed the loss on flaws in the UN’s process for determining hosting rights.

“I understand the position that the Prime Minister has taken,” he said. “He has taken a position to try to direct the frankly obscene process that exists internationally.”

The Smart Energy Council, which represents Australian clean energy businesses, said it was “deeply disappointed” by the outcome and called on the Australian government to hold its own giant green trade fair. The council’s director general, John Grimes, accused the Turkish government of holding UN climate talks hostage.

“Their ability to stand in the way of the overwhelming support from the Pacific and other countries for Pacific COP31 is an indictment on Türkiye and the process,” he said.

Climate Action Network Australia chief executive Denise Cauchi said Australia needed to ensure COP31 was delivered to the Pacific and Australian communities.

“This includes supporting long-standing Pacific demands such as a fair and equitable phase-out of fossil fuels, complying with Australia’s legal obligations to prevent climate damage, and committing to new, predictable and accessible grant-based climate finance,” he said.

Cauchi called on the Albanian government to engage Türkiye to ensure that civil society can also participate in the Türkiye summit, as was the case in Brazil, but not in some previous conferences. “People, not polluters, should be at the center of COP31,” he said.