Australia’s failed bid to host Cop31 looks like a mess – but it may actually be the best result possible | Adam Morton

Ouch. From one perspective, Australia’s long-running bid to host the Cop31 UN climate conference next year has ended in clear failure. It campaigned for more than three years for the rights to put on the world’s biggest climate summit and green trade fair, which would have brought tens of thousands of people to the South Australian capital of Adelaide next November. That’s not happening. Instead, the conference known as Cop31 is headed to the resort city of Antalya, on the Turkish Mediterranean. Related: Turkey to host Cop31 climate conference after Australia drops push to hold it in Adelaide The result will be a major let down to many people who had hoped hosting the climate carnival could help accelerate Australia on a transition from being a fossil fuel economy to a renewable energy superpower, and bring international focus to the existential plight facing Pacific island nations, who would have been co-hosts. The process that led to failure has been an opaque mess. In recent days, there have been doubts that Anthony Albanese and other senior figures really wanted the bid to succeed. The prime minister’s language sent mixed messages at best. It translated to stories in the Australian and international media saying the government was walking away. This contrasted with the message being relayed at the Cop30 talks in the Brazilian city of Belem, where the Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, had just declared the country was “in it to win it”. Uncertain support is not a new issue for Australia’s Cop31 bid. While Bowen championed it, other senior members of the government have only occasionally appeared to care. • Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, traditionally responsible for international climate negotiations, has been disengaged and sometimes outright opposed. There is little sign Albanese has considered UN climate conferences a priority. He hasn’t attended one since becoming prime minister in 2022. We’ll never know for certain, but some will wonder if more could have been done to get the bid over the line. That’s the negative take. But there is another way to look at it. In the context of the Cop30 talks this week in Brazil – and from an international perspective – the announcement on Wednesday night may, perversely, have been the best result possible. Bowen set out on Wednesday an unprecedented deal that he was working on with his Turkish counterpart, Murat Kurum. Turkey would be the Cop president, host and effective event manager, and Australia – Bowen himself – would assume a role as “president of negotiations”, wrangling nearly 200 countries on the stuff that the countries actually turn up for – the talks on how to collectively combat the climate crisis. There would also be a greater focus on the Pacific, including a lead-up event on an island nation. There are plenty of grounds for scepticism. Turkey and Australia do not have a close relationship. The details of the deal had not been finalised at the time of writing. The whole thing could fall over before it gets started. But it could also be a way to salvage something useful from what looked like an approaching car crash for the multilateral work on climate change. Turkey is widely seen in the international community as having been hellbent on causing havoc in the UN climate process. The system is supposed to work by consensus. Usually, that means if there are multiple countries in the race those with less support either bow out voluntarily, or a deal is quietly done to encourage them to exit the race. Turkey plainly had less support than Australia and Pacific islands to host Cop31. At least 24 of the 28 countries responsible for nominating next year’s host (from the Western Europe and Others Group) had backed the southern pitch. But, uniquely, Turkey refused to yield. The word “bastardry” has been thrown around a fair bit in recent days, and not just by Australians. Turkey’s obstinacy can be read as a reflection of the fracturing geopolitical climate. With the US absent under Donald Trump, there has been no major power with the heft to stare down the oil producers that provided the Turks with some cover. Related: Papua New Guinea ‘not happy’ as Australia walks away from bid to host Cop31 The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is seen as close to Vladimir Putin. Some countries feared a conference obstructed from the top if his government led the negotiations. And the Germans did not want to have to host an underprepared Cop31 at the UN climate headquarters in Bonn, which is what would have happened under UN rules if the stalemate wasn’t broken. A path through was needed. The UN system is imperfect and often disconcerting to watch, but multilateral action has empirically made a difference in the fight against global heating. The Turkey-Australia arrangement is a creative idea that keeps that going when it is needed more than ever. Despite understandable criticism of the Australian government over its hypocritical support for expanding fossil fuel exports, climate activists who attend UN conferences see Bowen as a force for good in the talks. He has been asked to co-chair negotiation streams at each of the four conferences he has attended. This matters. While some have dismissed the role of a “president of negotiations”, Erwin Jackson, from Monash University’s Climateworks Centre and a veteran observer at climate talks, says it is pivotal to their success. “Every successful Cop has been determined by a president holding the pen who can listen, build consensus and deliver an ambitious outcome. We saw that in Berlin in 1995, in Cancún in 2010 and Paris in 2015. We saw the opposite in Copenhagen in 2009,” he says. “It’s the most important role at the Cop other than making sure that people have food.” There are plenty of unanswered questions. For example, civil society plays a vital role at climate conferences. What, if anything, can the Australian government do to prevent a crackdown on civil society by the Turkish leadership? Perhaps not much. But that doesn’t stop this deal looking like the best chance available to have a summit that may offer something for the Pacific, Australia and the world. It’s worth a try. • Adam Morton is Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor and writes the Clear Air newsletter