Australia’s Bowen to lead Cop31 talks as questions mount over its coal and gas exports

Delegates will gather in the Turkish Mediterranean resort city of Antalya on Monday for Cop31, two weeks of UN climate talks involving nearly 200 countries.

Australia’s climate change minister, Chris Bowen, will preside over the negotiations. He will have to find consensus across rich fossil fuel producers such as Saudi Arabia and Russia, the world’s biggest emitter, China, and poorer vulnerable countries for whom climate change is seen as an existential threat.

Ahead of the talks, questions have been raised about how Australia, itself a major coal and gas exporter, can keep the world moving away from fossil fuels. Australia is the world’s second largest exporter of coal for burning in power stations and the largest exporter of coal for steelmaking. About one fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas exports also come from its shores — on par with Qatar, but behind the world’s biggest exporter, the United States.

The government expects the export value of the three fuels to be A$141bn (US$98bn) this financial year.

The talks will seek support for a new 2035 electrification goal, backed by Turkey and Australia, to have 35% of final energy use around the world coming from electricity instead of fossil fuels.

Climate scientists confirmed two months ago that global heating would reach at least 1.8C. The talks 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.

Speaking to the Guardian on Thursday, Bowen highlighted three areas of focus: minimising overshoot past the 1.5C Paris agreement temperature goal; helping poorer countries to access enough finance to deal with the climate crisis; and the new electrification goal. Ocean protection is likely to be another major theme.

But no mention of countries developing detailed plans to transition away from fossil fuels is on the official Cop31 agenda. Climate experts see that step as central to limiting the crisis.

The Australian scientist Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics and a veteran Cop attender, said countries agreed at the 2023 summit that a transition was needed. He said Australia could push the process forward — continuing work on developing a fossil fuel roadmap.

Hare said a critical issue at Cop31 was addressing the 1.5C overshoot. He said fossil fuels account for about 75% of global emissions, and overshoot cannot be limited without a very rapid transition away from fossil fuels.

This week more than 500 mostly Australian scientists and academics wrote to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pleading for an end to coal and gas approvals and asking for a legislated plan to phase out fossil fuel production that protects workers. The letter said Australia cannot credibly lead on climate abroad while it expands coal and gas at home.

Kathryn McCallum, director of strategy at the Climate Action Network Australia, said the Albanese government had approved 38 coal, oil and gas projects since it was elected in 2022. Those developments include extending the life of one of the biggest gas projects on the planet — Woodside’s giant North West Shelf processing facility in Western Australia — until 2070.

Professor 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 it struck off the agenda.

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.