Competing for Emissions

The COP Candidate Contest

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan shakes hands with Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese before a MIKTA photo session amidst the G20 leaders’ summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, 15 November 2022. Photo credit: Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana

It’s so silly as to be depraved. Two countries, hardly exemplary when it comes to their environmental credentials, vying for hosting rights to an event that does more to emit greenhouse gases than it resolves to limiting them. But this is exactly what Australia and Türkiye are doing regarding the Conference of Parties (COP) for 2026, school louts seeking to make themselves the most noticed in the playground of climate change politics.

The scale in terms of hosting these gatherings of anthropomorphic crowding is decidedly onerous and horrendously costly. The 30^th UN climate conference being held in Belém, Brazil has 56,118 registered delegates. Those held in the United Arab Emirates (2023) and Azerbaijan were bloated occasions of 100,000 and 70,000 delegates respectively. Babbling, lobbying, debating and disagreeing, these occasions only to end up with a stripped communique where the elect can backslap in self-congratulation. It follows that running them is a theatre of utter indulgence, something to rattle off for other potential hosts under the climate change tent. The earth may burn or flood, but pride is imperishable.

That Canberra and Ankara have thrown their hats in the ring to host COP31 demonstrates that if you desire something so much, you should be disqualified from getting it. It was charming of both countries to do so, seeing as neither leader felt inclined to attend turn up in Belém. Initially, such interest manifested in a co-chairmanship model, one hard to envisage in any practical, logistical sense. This idea had tickled conversation between the countries during the UN General Assembly meeting in September. In addition to hosting duties for high-level meetings the countries would also steer negotiations.

This was something the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also thought noteworthy in a missive to his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was similarly inclined. The Turkish response was one of teasing solidarity, a pitch for multilateralism. Hürriyet Daily News noted certain “diplomatic sources” pointing to the country’s priorities for COP31, which included “not a single region but all regions that will be impacted most by the climate changes and to this end special sessions to focus on [the] Pacific would be held.”

While ecological degradation and disruptions take place, the grand pantomime must go on. “There was a fair bit of complacency early on in the process,” Gavan McFadzean of the Australian Conservation Foundation told the BBC. There had been “an assumption that an Australian/Pacific joint presidential bid would just sail through.” Australia’s Energy Minister Chris Bowen who, unlike his boss, is attending COP30, remains convinced of Australia’s “overwhelming support” among the states for its candidacy. Never mind the substance of the talks; what was important was winning the bid.

As with many matters proclaimed as high principle, politics will leach out. The Pacific Islands, some of whom will disappear in the forthcoming decades, see their chance to promote their cause and entangle their larger neighbour. The Pacific Islands Forum, for that reason, is openly barracking for Australia, a country that continues to subsidise and coddle the fossil fuel industry. Such subsidies, the Australia Institute estimates, amounted to A$14.9 billion in 2024-5, an increase of 3% from the previous year’s total of A$14.5 billion.

Türkiye, on the other hand, has its own arguments as to why the event should take place at Antalya. According to a report by Reuters, Ankara claims its “candidacy emphasises cooperation and inclusiveness and aims to put greater focus on financing for developing countries while showcasing its progress towards a 2053 net-zero emissions goal.” Who could argue with such glowing promises? Add duplicity to the list and the country looks even more eligible. Like Australia, Türkiye is a consistent supporter of the fossil fuel industry, largely through its power plants. The 2025 OECD Economic Survey notes that coal fuels 30% of the country’s total energy supply, and over a third of electricity while a promised Emissions Trading Scheme remains unimplemented.

The impracticalities of running such a show should be an impediment. But this fails to blemish the mind of South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas, who has offered up Adelaide as a capable city of events. Much as he has with sporting tournaments, the Premier can always be trusted to place the chance of making dollars before anything else. As a press release from his office states, “the event would deliver a quantified potential benefit to South Australia of [A]$511.6 million, including economic activity generated by tourism, trade and investment as well as improvement to the brand of Adelaide and South Australia worldwide.”

Nothing official has been mentioned regarding the cost, and when asked about it, Foreign Minister Penny Wong was cool. “I’m not going to comment on the costs of a conference that we haven’t won the bid for yet,” she told ABC’s Insiders on 16 November. Estimates are, however, in supply, ranging between A$1 billion and $A1.5 billion. Given such figures, the South Australian projection of returns would be convincingly eclipsed.

There has been some talk that the Albanese government will thin the numbers of those turning up, should Canberra’s bid prove successful. From a number over 50,000, a proposed figure of 30,000 delegates has been teased out. This suggestion has drawn the disapproval of former Australian diplomat David Dutton. “The host cannot control the size of government delegations,” he writes in the Lowy Interpreter, “and turning away business and civil society would defeat the purpose.”

If there is no resolution between Ankara and Canberra, the Germans have promised to step in, as reluctant as the German state secretary Jochen Flasbarth seems to be. Tens of thousands of emitting participants will be simply dying to know.