John Kerry urges Australia to take ‘hard-nosed’ approach with world’s biggest fossil fuel-producing countries at Cop31

Exclusive: Former US secretary of state calls for more demanding steps from Australia as it takes over presidency of next year’s UN climate summit

Australia’s government, which will preside over the next UN climate summit, should gather the world’s 25 biggest greenhouse gas emitting countries and push them to draw up a roadmap to end the era of fossil fuels, former US secretary of state John Kerry has said.

Only by “hard-nosed” confrontation with fossil fuel producers, and reducing their consumption in major economies, would the world be able to tackle the climate crisis, he said.

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John Kerry urges Australia to take ‘hard-nosed’ approach with world’s biggest fossil fuel-producing countries at Cop31

Exclusive: Former US secretary of state calls for more demanding steps from Australia as it takes over presidency of next year’s UN climate summit

Australia’s government, which will preside over the next UN climate summit, should gather the world’s 25 biggest greenhouse gas emitting countries and push them to draw up a roadmap to end the era of fossil fuels, former US secretary of state John Kerry has said.

Only by “hard-nosed” confrontation with fossil fuel producers, and reducing their consumption in major economies, would the world be able to tackle the climate crisis, he said.

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‘Culture cringe’: experts dismiss Coalition claims Chris Bowen cannot remain minister while leading Cop31 negotiations

Opposition claims key diplomatic role at next year’s conference in Turkey would make Bowen a ‘part-time minister’ while Australians face inflated energy prices

Experts have dismissed claims Chris Bowen cannot remain a senior minister while playing a leading role in international climate negotiations, with one describing the argument as evidence of an Australian “culture cringe”.

Australia failed in its long-running bid to co-host the Cop31 climate summit with Pacific nations next year after Turkey refused to withdraw from the consensus process despite limited support.

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‘Now is the hour’: Labor urged to speed up fossil fuel phase-out to justify Cop30 pledge

Despite Australia signing the Belém declaration, Albanese rejected suggestion Labor shouldn’t develop new gas fields

The Albanese government is being urged to explain how it will drive a fossil fuel phase-out, after it joined dozens of countries at a UN climate summit to back a declaration that the world should quickly wean off coal, gas and oil.

Australia signed up to the declaration on a just transition away from fossil fuels at a side event at the Cop30 conference in the Brazilian city of Belém, which finished on Saturday night local time, more than 24 hours after the scheduled close.

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Papua New Guinea ‘not happy’ as Australia walks away from bid to host Cop31

Australia had been pushing to host climate conference next year with south Pacific nations, which are increasingly threatened by rising seas and climate-fuelled disasters

Papua New Guinea has voiced frustration after Australia ditched a bid to co-host next year’s UN climate talks with its Pacific island neighbours.

“We are all not happy. And disappointed it’s ended up like this,” foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko told Agence France-Presse after Australia ceded hosting rights to Turkey.

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Albanese will need to resolve the standoff with Turkey if Australia is to host Cop31

Hosting the climate summit is a major political and logistical exercise. The prime minister is being urged to turbocharge the diplomatic effort

The Australian government’s bid to host a major global climate conference in Adelaide next year wasn’t supposed to go like this.

A two-week meeting of diplomats at the UN climate headquarters in Bonn, Germany, failed to resolve what has become a long-running issue: whether the summit known as Cop31 would be held in Australia or Turkey, the only other nation vying for the rights.

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Palau president backs Australia’s bid to host Cop31 climate summit after Dutton labels it ‘madness’

Surangel Whipps Jr says he would be ‘deeply disappointed’ if attempt were abandoned under Coalition

The president of Palau has delivered a pointed barb at Peter Dutton while strongly backing an Australian bid to host a UN climate conference on behalf of the Pacific, arguing that it would boost regional solidarity and he would be “deeply disappointed” if the attempt was abandoned under the Coalition.

Speaking at a renewable energy conference in Sydney on Wednesday, Surangel Whipps Jr described seeing two-thirds of an island in his archipelago country disappear under water in his lifetime. “For those of us in the Pacific who have lived through storm surges, rising ocean levels and increasingly high tides, the phrase ‘water lapping at our door’ is not a metaphor or a punchline. It’s our fear and reality,” he said.

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