If Australia has conceded defeat to Turkey over the hosting rights for next year’s COP climate talks, someone should tell Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen in Brazil, where he is currently advocating for the bid at this year’s meeting.

Mixed messages from Australia are not making his job any easier, say observers on the ground.

Mixed messages … Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Australia has been making a case to host the talks, along with its Pacific neighbours, since 2022. With the full support of all the other nations in its Western Europe and others UN group, it has long been seen as the inevitable winner.

All other nations in the grouping, that is, except for Turkey, which is prosecuting its own campaign to host COP31.

The impasse must b

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