Hosting Cop in 2026 could be the incentive Australia needs to turbocharge climate action

Albanese promised to put his hand up for the world’s largest climate trade show – but the bid’s not locked in yet and the clock is ticking

In 2021 the then prime minister, Scott Morrison, reluctantly agreed to attend the Glasgow Climate Conference – the 26th Conference of the Parties (Cop) – thanks largely to peer pressure from the United Kingdom, which was the president of the conference at the time (and was led by a Conservative prime minister). Despite his reluctance, Morrison felt compelled to adopt a net zero by 2050 target before takeoff.

Only a week after the conference, the then opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, said if Labor won the next election, he would put his hand up to host a Cop in 2024.

Well, Labor won. And it’s 2024. So dude, where is my Cop?

Cops are a big deal. Like, a really big deal.

At the Cop in Dubai last year there were about 90,000 attenders. Cops are the biggest event a country can host outside sports. As the climate crisis has grown, so too have the conferences’ scope. To add to the complexity, all decisions taken at the conference must be by consensus. Think about how hard it is to introduce climate policies in Australia where all you need is a simple 50% majority and then imagine getting consensus between almost every nation on Earth.

Cops are complicated, incremental, painstaking work that ensures everyone is along for the journey. The result (when it works) is groundbreaking treaties like the Paris agreement and the goal to keep global warming to 1.5C.

For those outside the UN negotiating rooms, Cops have become the de facto global trade show for climate solutions. If Albanese’s vision is truly to see Australia become a renewable energy superpower, then how better to show this to the world than having them here to view for themselves, chequebooks in hand?

Australia might again be the lucky country, when it comes to a natural endowment of solar, wind, hydro and critical minerals, but luck is not enough to transition at the speed and scale needed to address the climate crisis. Hosting the world’s largest climate trade show could be just the incentive we need.

Unfortunately, Albanese decided to delay the Cop bid from hosting in 2024 to 2026. But it is still not locked in and the clock is ticking.

The only competing bid to host in 2026 is from Turkey and the decision must be made by consensus. Despite Turkey recently pulling out of hosting a similar UN environmental conference, it is still in the running.

Turkey could be convinced to step aside, but that will require smart diplomacy.

Switzerland withdrew its competing Cop bid after recognising Australia had a stronger case, including its plan to share the presidency with its Pacific neighbours. Pacific Island nations are world leaders in the decades-long call for urgent action on climate mitigation, leading the charge that secured the 1.5C goal in the 2015 Paris agreement. Pacific leaders have backed Australia’s bid and have agreed to jointly advocate for it.

We all know the Australian government can flex diplomatically when it wants to.

Just think of the efforts gone to securing Mathias Cormann’s top job at the OECD, or to keep the Great Barrier Reef off the world heritage in-danger list. Hosting a summit and a trade show to progress climate action seems like a far more worthwhile cause.

Now is the time to seal the deal and begin to build a climate-savvy Australia that we can showcase to the world.

Brazil will be the Cop president in 2025 and has decided it wants to bring the whole world to the Amazon by hosting it in the town of Belém. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, locked in his Cop bid two and a half years ahead of time. For Australia, that means securing hosting rights in the next few months.

I’ve been to almost a dozen Cops and know the government has a lot of work to do if it wants to pull off the world’s largest climate trade show.

We will need a long runway to present a new version of Australia, one that can build and export climate solutions, not just climate problems.

Cover photo: Chris Bowen speaks at the Cop28 in 2023 in Dubai. ‘If Albanese’s vision is truly to see Australia become a renewable energy superpower, then how better to show this to the world than having them here to view for themselves, chequebooks in hand?’ Photograph: Kamran Jebreili/AP