Hosting a UN climate summit should be about global cooperation on combating climate change. Australia’s bid for COP31 reveals how far COP has drifted.
I wrote most of what follows before the location of next year’s climate COP meeting had been decided. My general thesis was that I was ambivalent about Australia being the host, a diffidence I’d expressed earlier this year. I was concerned that under Australia’s stewardship the COP would continue the trend of recent COPs to degenerate into fossil fuel trade shows and opportunities for the host nation to showcase its business and investment potential.