Thousands of delegates, scientists and world leaders are gathered in Turkey for the latest United Nations climate summit, COP31. Their task is familiar: agree on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions and help countries cope with a warming planet.
But after more than three decades of negotiations, global emissions remain stubbornly high and the world is on course to overshoot the critical threshold of 1.5°C of warming. So have these annual summits actually achieved anything?
Dr Wesley Morgan, a climate diplomacy expert at UNSW Sydney, tells The Conversation Weekly podcast the answer is yes:
The Paris Agreement is a monumental diplomatic achievement.
Agreed in 2015, the treaty brought more than 190 countries together around shared climate goals. Morgan says it has helped shift the trajectory of global warming:
We were headed towards utter catastrophe. We’re still headed towards some very dire circumstances and more ambition is needed, but it is better than it would have been without this global agreement.
This year’s summit presents a particular diplomatic challenge for Australia because its climate and energy minister, Chris Bowen, is leading the negotiations.
Morgan says Australia can “tell a very positive story about what’s happening domestically in Australia”, including by pointing to significant strides in rooftop solar, which is now installed on one in three homes.
But Australia’s role as President of Negotiations at COP31 is controversial because Australia remains one of the world’s biggest exporters of coal and gas.
“It really is a tightrope,” Morgan says.
In September, the federal government approved an expansion of BHP’s Saraji coal mine in Queensland, while authorities in New South Wales gave the green light for a major Hunter Valley coal mine to keep operating until 2045.
The negotiations also face a major setback following the Trump administration’s withdrawal in January from international climate cooperation.
Yet Morgan notes that no other country has followed the United States out of the talks.
Pressure from Europe and the Pacific
European countries are expected to push for stronger commitments and stronger ambition from the COP 31 negotiations, following a summer of severe heatwaves and wildfires across the continent. “I think across Europe and in the UK, there’s a realisation that this is a clear and present danger now,” says Morgan.
He also points to the influence of Pacific island nations as evidence that smaller countries can shape global agreements. In 2015, The Republic of the Marshall Islands helped build the High Ambition Coalition, which was instrumental in securing the Paris Agreement and its 1.5°C goal.
For Pacific countries, Morgan says, that target is a matter of survival
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