In 2022, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government submitted to the UNFCCC, the United Nations climate body, a bid to co-host the annual climate summit (COP31) in 2026, together with a group of Pacific Island nations.
Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton claimed last week that Albanese’s commitment to co-host the conference was “madness” and would cost the Australian taxpayer “tens of billions of dollars” while doing “nothing to bring down the cost of living.”
There are several points to make in response.
The first is that COP31 will be the most important climate change gathering for the year. In addition to delegates from most of the world’s nations, the conference will also be attended by representatives from industry, academia, and civil society from across the globe.
Of course, there will be upfront costs involved in preparing for and running such a large event, but these are more in the order of a few hundred million dollars rather than the “tens of billions” mentioned by Dutton. Historically, the cost of hosting the annual Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, as it is officially known, has depended on the size of the gathering and how much infrastructure is already in place. For example, COP25 in Madrid in 2019 cost about $100 million, whereas COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 cost around $250 million. In both cases, the circumstances were challenging. The negotiations in Madrid were meant to be held in Chile but due to civil unrest there, a new venue needed to be found on short notice, and Spain came to the rescue. The U.K. had to deal with the added complication of the not-yet-contained COVID-19 pandemic.
Hosting such a conference is a big organizational undertaking, but Australia is in a more than favorable position to do so. Two immediate locations are readily available: Sydney Olympic Park and the Brisbane Convention Centre. And even smaller cities, such as Adelaide, have enthusiastically put up their hand to host the climate summit if the bid is successful. If held in Adelaide, a feasibility study commissioned by the South Australian government estimates that the conference would bring in over half a billion Australian dollars in economic benefits for the state.
The Smart Energy Council and many Australian businesses back the COP31 bid. It is also a popular initiative among the public, with 70 percent of Australians in favor.
This is not surprising. Businesses would benefit directly from the people attending the conference. It is also not unusual for visitors to stay for longer to see a bit of the country where the COP is held. In fact, recently published analysis by the Smart Energy Council shows that COP26 delivered the U.K. a net benefit of more than A$1 billion, making the estimates of a COP in South Australia realistic.
These economic benefits are likely to continue far into the future. Australia has committed itself to the goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050 and, at the same time, faces the challenge of lowering the rising energy prices. Both can only be achieved with the replacement of most of the dilapidated power plants with renewable energy and storage within the next ten years. Hosting the world’s largest climate meeting is a way to showcase and attract the necessary private investment into renewable energy that is needed to build a strong and reliable net zero economy. Coal power plants are stranded assets and nuclear reactors, in addition to being currently illegal in Australia, take decades to establish and are expensive, making both unattractive for investors.
Through partnership with one of the most climate vulnerable regions in the world, COP31 could be an effective platform for generating urgency on climate issues, particularly those close to home. The Pacific Island nations have always been powerful advocates for strong climate change action and were instrumental in pushing the agenda on loss and damage, adopting ambitious mitigation efforts, and keeping the 1.5-degree-Celsius temperature target alive.
Withdrawing from the bid would be damaging for Australia on many fronts. COP31 presents Australia with a unique opportunity. If successful, the Albanese government’s bid would help cement a partnership that could catalyze urgent climate change action, strengthen national security, and bring economic opportunities to the country. Under the Trump administration, the United States is leaving a vacuum in the Pacific, and it is in Australia’s interest to counteract China’s growing influence and communicate to Pacific leaders that Australia is a strong and reliable partner.
Conversely, a withdrawal would send exactly the wrong message to Pacific leaders, undermining Australia’s credibility as a country that is serious about the impacts of climate change in the Pacific and understands the existential threat it poses to many Pacific Island nations. For Australia, it is an opportunity to communicate those concerns on a global stage and catalyze much-needed climate change action, showcasing Australia’s leadership capabilities and restoring its credibility among other developed countries.
Ideally, no Australian political party should want to see their country go down in history for bailing out of hosting the major climate change summit. Diplomatically and economically, far more is at stake. To conclude, it would be madness, as Dutton might put it, to forego this opportunity and pull out of the bid for which the benefits clearly outweigh the costs.