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Ouch. On one hand, Australia's long-running campaign to host the UN climate conference next year has concluded unsuccessfully.

It campaigned for more than three years for the rights to put on the largest global climate summit and sustainable business expo, which would have brought many thousands of delegates to the city of Adelaide next fall.

This won't occur. Rather, the summit known as Cop31 is moving to the resort city of the Turkish coastal city, on the Turkish Mediterranean.

Letdown and Conflicting Signals

The result will be a significant disappointment to many people who had hoped organizing the climate carnival could help speed up Australia's shift from being a carbon-based economy to a renewable energy superpower, and bring global attention to the existential plight facing island countries in the Pacific, who would have been joint hosts.

The process that led to failure has been an unclear situation. Recently, there have been questions that Anthony Albanese and other senior figures truly desired the proposal to succeed. The prime minister's language were ambiguous at best. This led to stories in the Australian and international media saying the government was walking away.

This differed from the message being relayed at the Cop30 talks in the city of Belem, where the environment minister, Chris Bowen, had just stated the country was "in it to win it".

Ambiguous backing is not a new issue for the hosting proposal. While the minister supported it, other high-level figures of the government have only occasionally appeared to care.

DFAT, usually in charge for global environmental talks, has been disengaged and sometimes outright opposed.

Evidence suggests Albanese has considered UN climate conferences a important focus. He hasn't attended one since taking office in 2022. We'll never know, but some will wonder if additional efforts were possible to get the bid over the line.

A Different Perspective

That's one interpretation. But there is another way to consider it.

In the context the climate discussions this week in South America – and from an global viewpoint – the announcement on Wednesday night may, perversely, have been the most favorable outcome available.

Bowen set out on Wednesday an unprecedented deal that he was developing with his colleague from Turkey, the Turkish minister. The Turkish government would be the conference leader, organizer and effective event manager, and Australia – the climate minister – would take on the position as "president of negotiations", managing nearly 200 countries on the stuff that the countries actually turn up for – the discussions on how to collectively address the climate crisis.

There would also be a greater focus on the Pacific, including a preliminary meeting on an island nation.

Grounds for Scepticism

Multiple reasons exist for doubt. The two nations do not have a strong partnership. The details of the agreement had not been completed at the moment of announcement. The entire arrangement could fall over before it gets started.

However, it might represent a way to recover value from what looked like an impending disaster for the multilateral work on global warming.

Turkey is widely seen in the global community as having been determined on causing havoc in the UN climate process. This framework is supposed to work by consensus. Typically, that means if there are multiple countries in the competition those with less support either withdraw gracefully, or a compromise is quietly done to encourage them to step aside.

Turkey clearly had weaker endorsement than the joint Pacific proposal to organize the summit. At least 24 of the 28 countries responsible for selecting next year's host had supported the Australian bid.

However, exceptionally, Turkey declined to withdraw. The term "disruption" has been thrown around in the past week, and not only by Australians.

Geopolitical Context

Turkey's obstinacy can be read as a reflection of the fracturing geopolitical climate. Without US participation under Donald Trump, there has been no major power with the heft to confront the petroleum exporters that offered the Turkish government with certain protection.

President Erdoğan is considered aligned with 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 organize an unprepared Cop31 at the UN environmental office in Bonn, which is what would have occurred under international regulations if the deadlock wasn't resolved.

A Creative Solution

A resolution was needed. International frameworks is flawed and often disconcerting to observe, but multilateral action has empirically made a difference in the battle with global heating. The Turkey-Australia arrangement is a innovative solution that keeps that going when it is needed more than ever.

Notwithstanding understandable criticism of the federal administration over its hypocritical support for increasing fossil fuel exports, climate activists who attend international meetings see Bowen as a force for good in the negotiations. He has been asked to co-chair negotiation streams at multiple summits he has participated in.

This is significant. While some have dismissed the role of a "president of negotiations", specialists from research centers and veteran observers at environmental negotiations assert it is pivotal to their success.

"Every successful Cop has been shaped by a leader directing proceedings who can listen, build consensus and achieve an significant result. This occurred in Berlin in 1995, in Cancún in 2010 and the French capital in 2015. The reverse happened in Copenhagen in 2009," they note. "It's the most important role at the Cop other than making sure that people have food."

Remaining Concerns

There are plenty of unanswered questions. For example, civil society plays a vital role at environmental summits. What, if at all, can the federal administration do to stop a crackdown on NGO participation by the host government?

Perhaps not much. But that doesn't stop this arrangement looking like the best chance possible to have a summit that may offer something for the Pacific, Australia and the global community. This attempt is justified.