Official agenda omits detailed country plans to transition away from fossil fuels
In an interview with The Guardian on Thursday, Australia’s climate change minister Chris Bowen said all countries were dealing with the energy transition and that Australia’s domestic moves away from coal in electricity had been recognised internationally. Climate advocates had questioned whether Australia, as a major fossil fuel producer, could keep the world moving away from fossil fuels, and he dismissed that concern. Bowen highlighted three areas of focus: minimising overshoot past the 1.5C Paris agreement temperature goal, helping poorer countries access enough finance to deal with the climate crisis, and the new 2035 electrification goal, backed by Turkey and Australia, under which 35% of final energy use worldwide would come from electricity instead of fossil fuels. Ocean protection is likely to be another major theme.
The official Cop31 agenda does not include any mention of countries developing detailed plans to transition away from fossil fuels — a step climate experts describe as central to limiting the crisis. The talks open two months after climate scientists confirmed global heating would reach at least 1.8C, and they are being held amid geopolitical turmoil, with conflict in the Middle East driving an oil price crisis that has raised living costs across the globe.
Bill Hare, an Australian scientist who is chief executive of Climate Analytics and a veteran attendee of past climate summits, said countries agreed at the 2023 summit that a transition was needed and that Brazil, president of last year’s summit, had progressed calls for countries to develop plans to leave fossil fuels behind even when it could not find consensus at the talks. “Australia could pitch this up – to continue this process of developing a fossil fuel roadmap. Australia could do that,” he said. “Why should this process stop? That’s a hard political question for Australia to answer. I think [Bowen] needs to be brave at this Cop.”
Brazil published the first global fossil fuel roadmap this week, but experts pointed to a lack of benchmarks or timelines. Hare said a “critical issue” at Cop31 was addressing the 1.5C overshoot. “Fossil fuels are critical to that because they are about 75% of global emissions. We can’t limit overshoot without a very rapid transition away from fossil fuels. Whatever the theatre of the talks is, this has to be the central point,” he said.
Frank Jotzo, an economist and climate policy expert at the Australian National University, said he doubted all participants would agree on mapping a route away from fossil fuels, because “those countries that want to keep that out of the process will simply prevail in having that struck off the agenda”. “The Australian government will want to play this very safe,” he said. “I think the Australian presidency will have a strong focus on an orderly procedure with no surprises.”
More than 500 mostly Australian scientists and academics wrote to Albanese this week, pleading for an end to coal and gas approvals and asking for a legislated plan to phase out fossil fuel production that protects workers and communities. “Australia cannot credibly lead on climate abroad nor ensure national nor regional security while it expands coal and gas at home,” the letter said. “We ask you to be brave, to be bold, and to act with the urgency that the evidence demands.” The scientists wrote that championing access to climate finance while approving new coal and gas projects “invites the charge of hypocrisy”.
Kathryn McCallum, the director of strategy at Climate Action Network Australia, said the Albanese government had approved 38 coal, oil and gas projects since it was elected in 2022. Those approvals include extending the life of Woodside’s North West Shelf processing facility in Western Australia, one of the world’s biggest gas projects, until 2070.
“Australia has the opportunity to play a climate leadership role, but as one of the biggest producers and exporters that’s expanding coal and gas production at an enormous scale, it doesn’t pass the pub test to talk about limiting overshoot while approving corporate proposals for new coal and gas,” McCallum said. “A lot of people are asking if Australia is serious [about climate action] because of these approvals,” she said. “Australia will be right in the spotlight. The Australian government needs to stand up to the corporations that want to export this coal and gas, and act in the global interest.”
Australia has been urged to set aside support for its near US$100bn fossil fuel export industries and fight for a global agreement to move away from coal, gas and oil. The government expects the export value of coal, gas and oil to be $141bn (US$98bn) this financial year. Australia is the world’s second largest exporter of coal for burning in power stations and the largest exporter of coal for steelmaking, and about one fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas exports come from its shores — on par with Qatar, but behind the world’s biggest exporter, the United States.
Turkey and Australia vied for hosting rights and came to a compromise, with Turkey as president of the conference and Australia president of the negotiations themselves. The two countries want the talks to end with an overarching agreement from all countries, known as a cover decision. The UN talks work by consensus, meaning every country must agree before resolutions are passed, and Bowen will try to find consensus across rich fossil fuel producers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, emerging economic giants including China — the world’s biggest emitter — and poorer vulnerable countries for whom climate change is seen as an existential threat.
Delegates gather in the Turkish Mediterranean resort city of Antalya on Monday for Cop31, two weeks of climate talks, with Bowen leading negotiations between nearly 200 countries. Ahead of the talks, Bowen and Turkey’s Murat Kurum joined Fiji’s Lynda Tabuya and the UN’s Simon Stiell at a Pacific pre-Cop31 summit in Fiji.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is scheduled to speak during a two-day leaders summit at the talks. The Guardian reported that Australia’s conservative Coalition, in opposition, has pledged to scrap the 2050 net zero emissions target, and that the One Nation party rejects the science of climate change entirely. Both are vocal in their objections to renewable energy projects.