Turkey will host the United Nations climate summit next year, Reuters reports, based on statements by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Australia will lead intergovernmental negotiations at the summit in 2026. A meeting will also be organized prior to the summit, which will take place in the island region. “What we have come up with is a big victory for both Australia and Turkey,” Albanese told ABC Radio.
The annual COP conferences are the most important global forum for discussing and encouraging climate action. The climate summit compromise now reached between Turkey and Australia resolves the impasse between the nations. Both countries put themselves forward as candidates to host COP31 in 2022 and refused to withdraw.
Australia and Turkey now have just a year to prepare for the event. The COP meetings attract tens of thousands of people and require months of diplomatic preparation to reach consensus on climate goals.
Australian Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen told reporters at COP30 in Belém that the compromise would achieve Australia’s goals. “It would be great if Australia could have it all. But we can’t have it all,” he said. “It was important to reach an agreement.”
Prestige
Organizing a climate summit is becoming an increasingly prestigious assignment. It requires a lot of work from the host country, but it can also exert a lot of influence on the agenda and therefore also on the outcome. The summit is organized each year by one of the five UN regions. Turkey and Australia belong to the same region within this United Nations classification.
Because the two countries were unable to reach an agreement for so long, it was briefly feared that the summit would take place in Bonn. The German city houses the UN Climate Secretariat, which is responsible for the climate meetings, and would therefore automatically have to host the summit if Turkey and Australia had not reached an agreement.
In the meantime, there is much less uncertainty about the 2027 summit. In Belém, Brazil, where the COP30 is currently being held, it was announced that Ethiopia may organize the summit after Nigeria decided to withdraw.
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Battle between Australia and Turkey over organization of the next climate summit has not yet been decided
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