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Well. On one hand, Australia's protracted bid to host the Cop31 next year has concluded unsuccessfully.

The effort ran for over 36 months for the rights to put on the world's biggest environmental conference and sustainable business expo, which would have brought tens of thousands of delegates to the city of Adelaide next November.

This won't occur. Instead, the summit known as the UN climate meeting is moving to the resort city of the Turkish coastal city, on the Turkish Mediterranean.

Disappointment and Mixed Messages

This outcome will be a major let down to numerous individuals who had believed hosting the climate carnival could help accelerate Australia's shift from being a fossil fuel economy to a renewable energy superpower, and bring international focus to the existential plight facing Pacific island nations, who would have been joint hosts.

The process that resulted in defeat has been an opaque mess. In recent days, there have been doubts that the prime minister and other high-ranking officials truly desired the proposal to be approved. The prime minister's language were ambiguous at best. This led to reports in the local and global press saying the administration was walking away.

This differed from the communication being conveyed at the climate negotiations in the city of Belem, where the environment minister, the climate minister, had just stated the country was "in it to win it".

Ambiguous backing is a recurring problem for the hosting proposal. Although the minister supported it, other high-level figures of the administration have only sometimes appeared to care.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, traditionally responsible for international climate negotiations, has been uninvolved and sometimes completely against.

There is little sign Albanese has considered UN climate conferences a important focus. He hasn't attended one since becoming prime minister in 2022. We'll never know, but some will wonder if more could have been done to get the bid over the line.

An Alternative View

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

Considering the Cop30 talks this week in South America – and from an international perspective – the announcement on Wednesday night may, ironically, have been the best result available.

Bowen set out on that day an unprecedented deal that he was working on with his colleague from Turkey, the Turkish minister. Turkey would be the Cop president, organizer and primary coordinator, and the Australian delegation – the climate minister – would assume a role as "president of negotiations", wrangling nearly 200 countries on the stuff that the countries actually attend for – the talks on how to together address the environmental emergency.

There would also be a increased emphasis on the Pacific region, including a preliminary meeting on an island nation.

Grounds for Scepticism

There are plenty of grounds for scepticism. Turkey and Australia do not have a strong partnership. The details of the agreement had not been completed at the time of writing. The entire arrangement could fall over before it gets started.

However, it might represent a way to salvage something useful from what appeared to be an impending disaster for the international cooperation on climate change.

Turkey is widely seen in the global community as having been hellbent on creating disruption in the UN climate process. The system is supposed to work by unanimous agreement. Typically, that means if there are several nations in the competition those with less support either bow out voluntarily, or a compromise is privately arranged to persuade them to step aside.

Turkey clearly had weaker endorsement than the joint Pacific proposal to organize the summit. Approximately 24 of the 28 nations responsible for nominating next year's host had backed the Australian bid.

However, exceptionally, Turkey declined to withdraw. The term "bastardry" has been used frequently in the past week, and not just by local commentators.

International Dynamics

Ankara's stubbornness 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 stare down the petroleum exporters that provided the Turks with some cover.

President Erdoğan is considered close to the Russian leader. Several nations feared a conference hindered from the top if his administration managed the negotiations. Germany did not want to have to organize an underprepared Cop31 at the UN environmental office in Bonn, which is what would have occurred under UN rules if the stalemate wasn't broken.

An Innovative Approach

A path through was necessary. International frameworks is flawed and often unsettling to watch, but global cooperation has demonstrably made a difference in the battle with global heating. The Turkey-Australia arrangement is a creative idea that maintains progress when it is needed more than ever.

Despite understandable criticism of the federal administration over its contradictory stance for increasing carbon-based exports, climate activists who attend international meetings see Bowen as a force for good in the negotiations. He has been asked to co-chair discussion groups at multiple summits he has attended.

This is significant. Although some have dismissed the role of a "chief negotiator", experts from research centers and experienced analysts at climate talks assert it is pivotal to their positive outcome.

"Each effective summit has been determined by a leader directing proceedings who can listen, build consensus and deliver an significant result. We saw that in Berlin in 1995, in the Mexican resort in 2010 and Paris in 2015. The reverse happened in the Danish city in 2009," they note. "It's the most important role at the Cop except for making sure that delegates are fed."

Unanswered Questions

Multiple unanswered questions. As an illustration, civil society plays a vital role at climate conferences. What, if anything, can the Australian government do to stop a restriction on civil society by the Turkish leadership?

Possibly little. But that doesn't stop this deal looking like the best chance available to have a summit that may offer something for the Pacific region, the nation and the world. It's worth a try.