In 2022, the government of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese submitted to the UNFCCC, the United Nations climate organization, an attempted co-organization of the annual climate summit (COP31) in 2026, as well as a group of nations of the Pacific Island.
Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton said last week that Albanian’s commitment to the conference co-organization was “Madness” and would cost the Australian taxpayer “tens of billions of dollars” while doing “nothing to reduce the cost of life”.
There are several points to assert.
The first is that COP31 will be the most important gathering of climate change for the year. In addition to delegates from most nations in the world, the conference will also be frequented by representatives of industry, university and civil society around the world.
Of course, there will be initial costs involved in the preparation and management of such an important event, but these are more in the order of a few hundred million dollars rather than “tens of billions” mentioned by Dutton. Historically, the cost of receiving the annual conference of the CCNUCC parts, as it is officially called, depends on the size of the collection and the amount of infrastructure already in place. For example, COP25 in Madrid in 2019 cost around $ 100 million, while COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 costs around $ 250 million. In both cases, the circumstances were difficult. Negotiations in Madrid were to be held in Chile, but due to civilian troubles there, a new place was to be found within a short time, and Spain came to the rescue. The United Kingdom had to face the additional complication of the cocovid-19 cocovid pandemic not yet designed.
Organizing such a conference is a large organizational company, but Australia is in a more than favorable position to do so. Two immediate locations are easily available: the Sydney Olympic Park and the Brisbane Convention Center. And even the small towns, like Adelaide, enthusiastically put their hands to accommodate the top of the climate if the offer succeeds. If he is held in Adélaide, a feasibility study commissioned by the South Australian government estimates that the conference would lead to more than half a milliard of Australian dollars in economic benefits.
The Smart Energy Council and many Australian companies support the COP31 offer. It is also a popular initiative among the public, with 70% of Australians in favor.
It is not surprising. Companies would directly benefit from people who are assisted at the conference. It is not rare either that visitors stay longer to see a little from the country where the cop is held. In fact, an analysis recently published by the Smart Energy Council shows that COP26 offered the United Kingdom a net of more than a billion dollars, which makes the estimates of a COP in Australia of South realistic.
These economic advantages should continue far in the future. Australia is committed to the aim of reaching zero net emissions by 2050 and, at the same time, faces the challenge of reducing the increase in energy prices. Both can only be carried out with the replacement of most power stations dilapidated by renewable energies and storage over the next ten years. Hosting the largest climate meeting in the world is a way to present and attract the necessary private investment in the renewable energies necessary to build a solid and reliable net economy. Coal power plants are blocked assets and nuclear reactors, in addition to being currently illegal in Australia, put decades to establish and cost expensive, which makes both without attraction for investors.
Thanks to a partnership with one of the most vulnerable regions of the climate in the world, COP31 could be an effective platform to generate emergency on climatic issues, especially those close to their home. The countries of the Pacific Island have always been powerful defenders of a strong action of climate change and have helped to push the agenda on loss and damage, by adopting ambitious attenuation efforts and by keeping the temperature target at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The withdrawal of the offer would be harmful to Australia on many fronts. COP31 presents Australia with a unique opportunity. In the event of success, the offer of the Albanian government would help to cement a partnership which could catalyze the urgent action of climate change, strengthen national security and bring economic opportunities to the country. Under the Trump administration, the United States left a vacuum in the Pacific, and it is in the interest of Australia to counter the growing influence of China and to communicate to the Pacific leaders that Australia is a strong and reliable partner.
Conversely, a withdrawal would send the bad message exactly to the Pacific leaders, undermining the credibility of Australia as a country which is serious about the impacts of climate change in the Pacific and includes the existential threat it poses for many nations of the Pacific Island. For Australia, this is an opportunity to communicate these concerns on a world scene and to catalyze the action of indispensable climate change, to present the leadership capacities of Australia and to restore its credibility among other developed countries.
Ideally, no Australian political party should want to see their country go down in history for saving from the reception of the main summit on climate change. Diplomatically and economically, much more is at stake. To conclude, it would be madness, as Dutton could say, to give up this opportunity and withdraw from the offer for which the advantages clearly prevail over costs.