Australia takes charge of the world’s climate negotiations as COP31 opens in Antalya without Washington

COP31, the United Nations climate conference, opens in the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya on Monday 9 November and runs until 20 November. For those 12 days, the chair of the world’s climate negotiations is an Australian.

The arrangement is unusual. Türkiye’s environment minister, Murat Kurum, is COP31 President and runs the venue, the program and the summit’s non-binding action agenda. Australia’s Climate Change and Energy Minister, Chris Bowen, is President of Negotiations, the person who chairs the talks between governments and guides the wording of whatever they agree. The split settled a long dispute between the two countries over who would host the 2026 summit.

Bowen has made clear the two countries are not co-presidents. The question nobody has had to answer yet is what happens if Ankara and Canberra disagree over the final text.

Who is coming, and who is not?

Türkiye expects more than 100,000 people in Antalya. Kurum said in late October that 85 world leaders had confirmed they would attend, along with nearly 300 ministers.

The leaders’ summit falls on 11 and 12 November, the third and fourth days. Erdoğan and Guterres are expected to welcome leaders, with Albanese among the speakers at the opening.

The biggest absence is the United States. The Trump administration has left the Paris Agreement and is not taking part in the negotiations, although a US congressional delegation will attend. Leader numbers look thinner than at the Dubai summit in 2023, with few of the G20’s heads of government listed to speak.

What is actually being negotiated?

Officials are calling Antalya an “implementation COP”: less about new treaties, more about delivering what has already been promised.

The hardest fight is over fossil fuels. At COP28 in Dubai, countries agreed to transition away from coal, oil and gas. At COP30 in Belém last year, oil-producing countries kept any explicit mention of fossil fuels out of the final deal, and Brazil offered a voluntary roadmap instead. Türkiye and Australia have said they want to avoid a repeat.

Money is the second fight. In Belém, countries agreed to at least triple finance for adaptation, the funding poorer countries need to cope with floods, heat and drought, by 2035. They did not agree a starting figure or who pays. African negotiators want that question on the agenda in Antalya; developed countries facing tight budgets are reluctant to commit more.

What is the electrification goal?

The presidency’s headline idea is to raise electricity’s share of the world’s final energy use from about a fifth today to 35 per cent by 2035, which means far more electric cars, heat pumps and electrified industry running on clean power. Kurum first proposed the goal at the Bonn talks in June.

It is not a negotiated target. Türkiye is building a coalition of countries willing to sign up, and Bowen has said the pledge sits outside the formal COP outcomes for now. Energy analysts say grids, not power stations, are the main obstacle to reaching it.

Why does this matter for Australia?

For Australia, the next fortnight is a test of diplomacy as much as climate policy. If the talks end in a deal that names fossil fuels, the gavel will have been in an Australian hand. If they collapse, so will much of the blame.

The role also puts Australia’s own record under the spotlight. Campaigners point out that both Australia and Türkiye are still expanding coal, and Australia remains one of the world’s largest exporters of coal and gas. Every intervention Bowen makes on fossil fuels will be read against that.

There is also a direct stake for the region. Pacific nations, among the most exposed to rising seas, have long pressed for faster cuts and more adaptation money, and they will judge Australia’s chairing on whether that money question moves.

How far off track is the world?

A UN Environment Programme report in October found that fully carrying out every country’s current national commitments would still put the world on course for about 2.6°C of warming this century. In September, the UN warned that temperatures were on course to pass 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. With a strong El Niño under way, 2026 or 2027 could become the hottest year on record.

Few expect Antalya to close that gap. The measure of success for Bowen will be narrower: a text nearly 200 countries can accept that keeps the transition away from fossil fuels alive.