Introduction by Croakey: An Australia-Pacific COP31 offers an opportunity for Pacific Island voices on climate action to be platformed and for international pressure to influence Australia’s transition away from its reliance on fossil fuels, according to Isabelle Zhu-Maguire, PhD candidate at the Coral Bell School of Asia and Pacific Affairs, Department of International Relations within the Australian National University.
As an attendee at previous COPs, Zhu-Maguire outlines below what an international climate conference might look like for Australia, particularly given its fossil fuel industry and recent decision to extend Woodside’s North West Shelf gas project until 2070.
It is expected we will learn if Australia’s bid to co-host the 31st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change with Pacific nations is successful during the mid-year climate conference in Bonn, Germany, from 16-26 June, according to Zhu-Maguire.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen recently said he remains committed to hosting COP31 in Australia in partnership with the Pacific.
“It’s a significant opportunity for Australia to help the rest of the world understand the decarbonisation journey for a country that’s traditionally been a large supplier of fossil fuels, to help the Pacific elevate their story, their concerns, and their issues in an unprecedented way, and to bring the world’s largest renewable energy and energy trade fair to Australia,” he said.
Isabelle Zhu-Maguire writes:
For loyal followers of international climate politics, the potential of Australia’s successful bid to host the United Nations climate conference, COP31, is much like having the Olympics come to our shores.
The ‘Conference of the Parties’ or ‘COP’ conferences are the largest conferences on climate change and primarily involve the negotiations of the UN agreements which, in theory, govern international climate action.
These conferences are huge – some of the largest in recent memory have seen up to 100,000 people attend. Hence, it is not facetious to say that they are the Olympics of climate change, with the host city often donning COP memorabilia all around town. At one COP I attended, delegates were eligible for discounts at local restaurants.
We will likely learn if Australia will host the 31st COP in 2026 at the Bonn negotiations being held between 16 and 26 June.
So what would COP31 entail for Australia?
Setting the agenda
Most prominently, the host country gets to choose the ‘action agenda’ of the COP. This is an opportunity for the host to focus the world’s attention on a specific aspect of climate change.
Australian Ministers have pitched this as a ‘Pacific COP’, meaning the Pacific Islands should have a significant influence over this agenda.
The agendas on the table at the last few years’ Conference of Parties have been about financing climate change mitigation, adaptation and ‘Loss and Damage’.
Whilst all incredibly important to the region, I expect that the Pacific Islanders consulted will want more focus on mitigation and emissions reduction – both of which have been overshadowed the past few COPs by financing issues.
However, as Australia would officially be the host of the Conference, the Australians will have the final say and I doubt they would be willing to put their own lacklustre mitigation in the international spotlight. But, I really hope to be proven wrong on this.
Australian-flavoured
Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Australia has developed quite a reputation.
For almost the entirety of the UNFCCC’s history, Australia has been seen as one of the ‘bad guys’. Our reputation as a resource-state is well known. We, alongside the US, were the only ones to not originally ratify the UNFCCC’s Kyoto Climate Agreement.
We have been known to cheat UNFCCC reporting by counting deforestation in our emissions accounting. It was even suggested by Former Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainamarama that Australia was in the “coalition of the selfish” and that we should be kicked out of the UNFCCC.
However, after the 2022 election, Australia has attempted to rehabilitate this image.
The Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water (DCCEEW) organises the Australia pavilions at COP conferences, and they put on a good show. These spaces are some of the most beautiful at COP and are covered in Indigenous art. I have had international colleagues remark to me that it is the first time they have seen Aboriginal art and are often immensely impressed.
DCCEEW’s genuine engagement with Indigenous peoples will be key to a successful COP, particularly given the growing importance and vocality of Indigenous groups like the Indigenous Peoples Organisations Constituency within the UNFCCC.
The Australians have also become famous for having the best coffee in the conference centers, having barista-made coffees from Australian-roasted, net-zero beans that dazzle international delegates who do not come from cultures of such coffee-snobbery as our own.
Our Australian negotiators also represent us very well. The DCCEEW team are a passionate, well-organised, charming, and relatively young crew who stand out compared to their international colleagues. They have become known to international leaders in diversity and inclusion efforts and are also a funny bunch.
I thus expect that a COP down-under will follow suit. Years before the bid was approved, DCCEEW had staff working to organise a then-hypothetical COP31.
I expect the conference will be extremely professionally run, filled with beautiful art, state of the art facilities and good coffee. I just hope the Australians listen to the yearly critique COP delegates always have – that the food is too expensive and not vegetarian enough.
In the spotlight
Hosting such a global event would mean all eyes on us.
The aforementioned charm of our negotiators is not enough to negate the other reputation Australians have as ‘western lackeys’ whose laggard negotiating on mitigation targets frequently follows the lead of US and UK negotiators.
In fact, Australia is an annual winner of COP civil-society tradition ‘Fossil of the Day‘.
We will be the third petro-state to host a COP in recent years. And much like our colleagues in the UAE and Azerbaijan, hosting a climate conference will put our planet-destroying fossil fuel industry in the spotlight.
I also expect there will be a lot of chatter about how far away Australia is, with almost all international delegates having to endure large, long-haul flights to get here.
Internally, as outed Prime Ministerial candidate Peter Dutton has already attempted, I think we will see Australians critique the cost of the COP.
The right of politics will likely follow Dutton in calling the conference unnecessary “madness“, and the left likely citing the ecological cost of the conference and the fact that the money that went into this conference could be better spent on mitigation and adaptation.
Whilst the UNFCCC is slow moving and many climate activists are now boycotting the conferences, I remain excited for COP31 down under with the hope that Pacific voices will be platformed and international pressure leads to the reformation of our own petro-state.
Civil society
Excitingly, an Australian COP will likely be the first in multiple years in which large street protests will occur.
Street protests organised by the local civil society used to be a mainstay of COPs. However, in recent years COPs have occurred in countries where protest is illegal or in cities that do not have a large civil society presence.
I am thus hopeful to see major protests at an Australian COP that will reinvigorate the youth climate movement. Protests are a physical showing of civil society pressure on the negotiators to act progressively and bravely. For example, COP26 generated the largest protests in Glasgow’s history.
Given this will be a ‘Pacific COP’, I think we will see powerful images of Pacific advocates at the forefront of these protests, dressed in beautiful weaved and beaded Indigenous regalia and we will hear the sounds of fa’aumu ringing through the streets of Adelaide.
I do note, however, there are increasing and concerning crackdowns on climate protests in Australia – especially in South Australia, where enormous fines were hurriedly introduced in 2023 to penalise protestors who block the free passage of public space.
It has been announced that Adelaide, on the traditional lands of the Kaurna people, is the preferred site should Australia’s pitch succeed.
To me, this is an interesting location for a ‘Pacific COP’. Notwithstanding that Adelaide does not touch the Pacific Ocean, it is also extremely far away from the Pacific Islands as compared to Brisbane, Cairns or even Sydney, and there is no significant Pacifika diaspora.
Adelaide will also get to enjoy the tourism that a COP also brings. I expect the community of Kangaroo Island, ravaged by the Black Summer fires in 2019/2020, will benefit from the conference. The wineries too will get to show off their hospitality to international delegates. Perhaps even the ‘Tour Down Under’ bike race will also get a spruiking.
Adelaide’s recent experiences of drought and the climate-related algal bloom will also provide a pertinent backdrop to the urgency of climate negotiations.
About the author
Isabelle Zhu-Maguire is a PhD candidate at the Coral Bell School of Asia and Pacific Affairs, Department of International Relations within the Australian National University. Her thesis investigates the ways in which Australia listens and responds to the climate advocacy of Pacific Island Nations.
She has conducted extensive research into the experiences of women in Afghanistan and their perspectives and realities living through conflict, oppression, and climate change.
Isabelle has also been advocate for greater youth inclusion within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Also read: COP31: an opportunity to widen climate conversations to include cultural and heritage protection
See Croakey’s archive of articles on the climate emergency
