Australia’s PM says it reaches agreement to host pre-meetings with Pacific nations while Turkiye will host main summit.Turkiye will host next year’s COP31 summit in the city of Antalya, ending a long standoff with Australia over the location of the top United Nations climate meeting.Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Thursday morning that Australia had reached an arrangement with Turkiye to host negotiations in the lead-up to the 2026 UN climate meeting along with Pacific nations while Turkiye will assume the presidency of the official meeting.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list“What we’ve come up with is a big win for both Australia and [Turkiye],” Albanese told the Australian public broadcaster ABC Radio Perth.The announcement comes as this year’s COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belem is due to close on Friday.Australia had been pushing to host COP31 next year as a “Pacific COP” alongside low-lying South Pacific nations, which are increasingly threatened by rising seas and climate-fuelled disasters.Despite Australia’s efforts, Turkiye refused to back down in its bid to host the summit.Turkiye had said that as an emerging economy, it would promote solidarity between rich and poor countries at its summit, which would have a more global rather than regional focus.Turkiye will now have just 12 months to plan the meeting at the Antalya Expo Center due to the unusually long process to secure hosting duties and the lack of procedures in place to handle a situation in which two countries wanted to host at the same time.The presidency of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Conve …
