The hosts of the next major United Nation climate conference, Turkey and Australia, are facing criticism for being partners in a coal supply chain while remaining near silent on the need for a global deal to rapidly get off fossil fuels.
With the Cop31 summit in the Turkish Mediterranean city of Antalya just a month away, the two countries running the fortnight-long talks have been accused by activists of a “vacuum of action” on plans for a transition away from coal, gas and oil – a key goal of many nations at the talks.
Preparations for Cop31 will kick up a gear this week with a small group of national leaders, including the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, expected to join representatives of more than 50 countries for a preparatory meeting in Fiji and Tuvalu.
Pre-summit meetings are typically bureaucratic gatherings, but expectations for his year’s event were elevated after Australia – which has the new role of “president of negotiations” at Cop31 – pushed to hold it in the Pacific, and invited leaders to attend, arguing it would highlight the plight of low-lying island nations.
Few leaders from outside the region accepted.
The Fijian government named five expected attendees – from Thailand, Antigua and Barbuda, Cape Verde, the Maldives and Timor-Leste – but some have since cancelled. They include the Thai prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, as Bangkok suffered severe flooding.
The meeting is being held just days after a New South Wales regulator approved the largest coalmine expansion in the Australian state’s history. Joint owners Yancoal and Glencore estimate the 19-year life extension for the Hunter Valley Operations thermal coalmine could lead to 809m tonnes of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions if it wins federal approval.
A report, by campaign group 350.org, cited UN Comtrade data suggesting the supply of coking and thermal coal from Australia to Turkey had been responsible for more than 75m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions since the signing of the landmark Paris climate agreement in 2015. It said the countries were now expanding their trade in liquified natural gas (LNG).
The organisation said this had continued while the Cop31 presidents largely ignored fossil fuels – the primary cause of the climate crisis – in public comments before the summit. Three letters to countries setting out the mission and expectations for the summit, two from the Turkish government and one joint letter with the Australians, did not mention fossil fuels. Albanese also did not mention fossil fuels in a keynote speech at Climate Week in New York two weeks ago.
Andreas Sieber, 350.org’s head of political strategy, said the hosts should be following the previous host, Brazil, in working on a roadmap to accelerate a transition away from dirty fuels. He said both countries should announce coal phase-out dates as a first step.
“Amidst the biggest energy crisis in history, it is extraordinary that the Cop31 presidency continues to ignore the central issue of fossil fuels,” Sieber said. “Rather than leading the transition away, both countries are still expanding fossil fuels at extreme rates.”
Australia has accelerated its clean energy expansion at home, but remains one of the world’s biggest exporters of coal and LNG, with shipments this year expected to be worth more than A$140bn. The 350.org report said Turkey was Europe’s biggest coal-power generator and it had signalled it could expand its coal and gas power capacity by about 30% by 2035.
Australian climate change minister, Chris Bowen, has argued at previous summits that the world needs to move away from dirty fuels, including declaring at the Cop28 conference in Dubai that “the age of fossil fuels will end”. He told the Guardian on Sunday that Australia was a fossil fuel-exporting country, but acting on climate change was in its national, economic and strategic interest.
He said Treasury analysis had found Australia could have an impact on global emissions by becoming a renewable energy exporter. “Our trading partners are pursuing their own energy transitions. We want to help them do that, so we remain a reliable trading nation,” Bowen said.
Turkey and Australia are sharing hosting duties at Cop31 in a unique agreement struck after a protracted standoff. Turkey has ultimate responsibility, including running a massive green trade fair, but Bowen has been appointed “president of negotiations” for the formal talks between nearly 200 nations.
The Cop30 summit in Brazil last year avoided collapse, but could manage only a voluntary agreement to begin discussions on a roadmap to phase-out fossil fuels after oil-producing countries countries opposed stronger wording.
Frustration over the impasse prompted 57 national governments to hold a separate conference on how to transition away from fossil fuels in Colombia in April. Turkey and Australia were represented at the Colombia meeting by senior officials.
Vanuatu’s climate change minister, Ralph Regenvanu, said it would be “deeply disappointing” for Pacific countries if Australia extended the life of a major coalmine as it led the Cop31 negotiations. “This decision sends the wrong signal at a critical time,” he said,
Bill Hare, the chief executive of the Climate Analytics, a science and policy institute, said it would be “interesting to see” if Turkey and Australia could set aside their “addiction to fossil fuels”. He said the Australia Labor government had approved 37 fossil fuel developments for export since its election in 2022, while Turkey under president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seemed “fixated on prioritising digging up and burning coal … and establishing itself as a regional fossil gas hub”.
Cop31 will be held amid rising concern about the impact of what has been described as a “super El Niño” weather pattern, and after the UN Environment Programme warned the world would breach the 1.5C global heating goal included in the Paris agreement.
The UN agency warned every fraction of a degree of temperature rise would intensify destructive extreme weather, glacier melt, ecosystem loss, and island and coastal city submersion, and called for immediate and sustained cuts in emissions.
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