Months of competition between Turkey and Australia has come to an end, as Turkey became next year’s host of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31). Australia will chair the summit, while discussions will focus on the Pacific, according to the compromise reached on Nov. 19, hours before the end of this year's summit in Brazil.
The decision came as a big relief to Germany; as Berlin was committed to being the host in case of a stalemate. Berlin was unwilling to host, arguing time constraints.
According to UN rules, it was the turn of the UN's “Western European and Other States” group to host the 2026 Climate Summit. Turkey and Australia, as two members of this group, announced their candidacy in 2022. As host countries must be selected by a vote within the group and by consensus, either Australia or Turkey had to withdraw their candidacy.
NEGOTIATIONS FOR COMPROMISE
While the host was supposed to have already been decided at last year’s summit in Baku, both capitals refused to withdraw their candidacy. The two tried to find a formula in talks during the UN General Assembly in New York in September.
Turkey proposed to co-host the meetings, according to a Turkish diplomatic source.
Australia initially accepted this proposal, but later, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sent a letter to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “rejecting progress on certain issues,” and the matter was back to square one, according to Turkish sources.
ANTALYA TO HOST
Hosting COP31 was among Albanese's pledges when he won the election in May. In recent days, questions have arisen about whether Albanese and other senior officials really want their country to succeed in the diplomatic battle over hosting.
While the minister responsible for climate insisted on hosting the summit, press reports suggested that other senior members of the government did not attach the same importance to it.
Turkey's role as a mediator in the Russia-Ukraine war and in shaping the dynamics in Syria, and its presence at the table in the Gaza negotiations have given the country “unique and transferable mediation capacity,” according to academic Ümit Şahin, senior scholar and Head of the Climate Change Program at the Istanbul Policy Center.
The host country also has the advantage of showcasing its environmental projects, thereby attracting investment for the financing of major projects.
However, Şahin emphasized that Turkey's continued close political and economic ties with major fossil fuel producers such as Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan “could shape the impartiality, objectives and integrity of the conference outcomes”.
Turkey has had a rather problematic past with COP. It refused to be classified as a developed country. It took more than ten years to sign the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, while Turkey reluctantly signed the 2015 Paris agreement, only after a number of countries like France and the U.K. promised to provide certain incentives.
The summit will be organized in Antalya, whose mayor from the main opposition CHP remains in jail.
