Cop out? Anthony Albanese wants to host the next global climate summit – so why isn’t he attending this one?

Anthony Albanese is in the middle of summit season. Since late September he has visited the US twice, and just returned from Malaysia and South Korea. He heads to South Africa in three weeks for the G20. But diplomatic and business leaders say there is another trip the prime minister should be making if he is serious about the climate crisis – and particularly the Australian government’s bid to co-host a major climate conference in Adelaide in November 2026. This year’s fortnight-long global climate summit, known as Cop30, officially starts in the Brazilian city of Belém on 10 November. But international leaders are gathering in advance, starting on Thursday. Related: Australia could split Cop31 hosting rights with Turkey under potential compromise Albanese has not attended a UN climate conference since becoming PM and has indicated he does not plan to join more than 50 leaders – including Britain’s Keir Starmer, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Friedrich Merz and Palau’s Surangel Whipps Jr – in being hosted by the Brazilian president, Lula de Silva, to focus on the faltering work to deliver on the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement. With the hosting rights for the Cop31 summit unresolved, stuck in a standoff between an Australia-Pacific joint bid and a Turkish pitch to hold the conference in its Mediterranean city of Antalya, observers say there is a strong case for Albanese to meet with other leaders who could influence the decision, which must be made this month in Belém. Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s ex-climate envoy who forged a global reputation in leading the 2022 negotiations over the creation of a “loss and damage” fund, said it would send “a very clear signal to the world that Australia is very serious” if Albanese went to Brazil, and “raise some question marks” with other leaders if he did not. She noted several leaders from the group of countries responsible for deciding who hosts Cop31 – known as Western Europe and Other States – had said they would be attending. “It is common practice that if a country wishes to host a [climate conference] that its leader attends and continues to make the case. In this case, he would do so with many Pacific leaders who I’m sure are attending,” Morgan told the Guardian. “It would certainly strengthen the Australian-Pacific bid for him to attend.” Morgan said “if there was ever a moment for a leader to go to a Cop” it was now, when some countries appeared to be working to undermine the multilateral effort on the climate crisis. “It’s 10 years after Paris. It’s a moment for a shoulder-to-shoulder effort,” she said. “I would think it’s also in Australia’s national interests based on what it’s put forward on its [2035 climate target] and its goals on renewable energy, and the role that it wishes to play in Asia and globally, to be present at the highest level.” Innes Willox, the chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, earlier said hosting Cop was “not without challenges or questions” but had the potential to give Australia “a key seat at the table in global decisions around the intersection of the economy, emissions and energy”. “We all recognise the prime minister has a hectic travel schedule through the last three months of the year but, if we are deadly serious about hosting the Cop next year, his presence in Brazil next month would be a clear sign of intent,” he said. “It would be unfortunate if we fell over at the final hurdle because we were judged by others to not be fully committed to hosting it next year.” Whipps, an active supporter of the Australia-Pacific bid, last week told the ABC that it was “crunch time” for a decision on Cop31 hosting rights and Albanese should go to Brazil to “close the deal”. “His voice and his presence there, I think, will represent the importance of a Pacific Cop and hopefully can push Turkey over the line [into withdrawing its bid],” he said. UN decision-making is by consensus and it is unclear how the standoff will end unless one of the bids is withdrawn. If a decision on Cop31 is not made in Belém, hosting responsibilities default to Germany, which is home to the UN climate headquarters in Bonn. Australia has had support from an overwhelming majority of the 28 members of the Western Europe and Other States group. The Germans have made it clear they do not want to host the event. Albanese told reporters in Canberra on Monday that he would go to Brazil “if that makes a difference” but he previously told some media outlets that the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was unlikely to attend. He said he had written to Erdoğan for a second time last week to try to resolve the issue but had not heard back. Related: Albanese will need to resolve the standoff with Turkey if Australia is to host Cop31 Diplomatic sources said Albanese first wrote to Erdoğan at least three weeks ago. As flagged by the Guardian in September, he is understood to have proposed a compromise that involved Turkey hosting a lead-up event or events, while the main conference was in Adelaide. Turkey has reportedly suggested an alternative in which the Cop presidency – and management of the summit – was shared by the two countries. Sources said it was notable that Turkey planned to send a senior figure – its vice-president, Cevdet Yılmaz – to the leaders’ meeting in Brazil, while Australia would be represented by the assistant minister for climate change, Josh Wilson. The Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, who has driven the Cop31 bid within the Albanese government, will attend the ministers’ segment in the second week of the talks, starting on 17 November. The South Australian premier, Peter Malinauskas – another strong advocate for the event, who has claimed it could be worth $500m to the state’s economy – told the ABC on Friday that he had a flight booked for Belém and “if I can actually make a difference actually being on the ground, then I’m there in a heartbeat”. But he said a final decision had not been made.