Hosting a UN climate summit should be about global cooperation on combating climate change. Australia’s bid for COP31 reveals how far COP has drifted.

I wrote most of what follows before the location of next year’s climate COP meeting had been decided. My general thesis was that I was ambivalent about Australia being the host, a diffidence I’d expressed earlier this year. I was concerned that under Australia’s stewardship the COP would continue the trend of recent COPs to degenerate into fossil fuel trade shows and opportunities for the host nation to showcase its business and investment potential.

An op-ed by Tina Latif in a recent Sydney Morning Herald nicely illustrates my concerns. Latif was the “director of strategy for COP28 in the United Arab Emirates ” two years ago.

Her argument was that holding next year’s COP in Australia “is a strategic play that can unlock billions in investment, deepen partnerships and place Australia at the centre of the next wave of economic and technological change”. And further that “done right, it would position Australia as a trusted Indo-Pacific partner shaping how AI serves people, economies and the planet.”

According to Latif: “Hosting COP31 would amplify Australia’s strengths [in natural resources, renewable technology, scientific capability and Pacific ties], turning them into influence and investment.” On the other hand, “ceding it to Turkey isn’t fiscal responsibility; it’s strategic surrender” – seemingly referring to surrendering a major economic advantage and surrendering the Pacific to China.

So there you have it, no mention by Latif of how hosting the COP would strengthen Australia’s commitment and efforts to reducing our own greenhouse gas emissions; no mention of making our proper contribution to reducing the world’s emissions to keep global warming under 2C (1.5 is dead and gone); no mention of applying our diplomatic skills to the challenge of wealthy nations providing funds, technology and expertise to poorer nations to help them make the transition to renewable energy, prepare for the future consequences of climate change and repair the loss and damage already suffered; and no mention of ensuring a just transition within and across national borders.

The whole idea of the UNFCCC process and the annual COP meetings was to promote international cooperation in tackling climate change and develop mechanisms to make sure all countries make their appropriate contribution. These goals seem to have been lost. For instance, earlier this week in P&I, Jon Queally alerted us to the more than 1500 fossil fuel lobbyists exerting their influence at the current COP in Brazil. Incredibly but not surprisingly, there are over 500 people associated with the unproven, over-promising, under-delivering carbon capture and storage industry.

In making the case for COP31 to be held in Adelaide, the Australian government showed no signs of bucking recent COP trends for an emphasis on self-promotion and protection of the fossil fuel industry.

On the contrary, politicians’ utterances over the past year have emphasised how hosting the COP would benefit Australia and we would almost certainly have directed most of our efforts over the next year to ensuring that we can continue to produce the coal and gas that are creating the existential crisis for Pacific nations.

Hence my earlier deep ambivalence and my feeling now that nothing has been lost as far as combating climate change is concerned by Australia not being the host.

And before anyone superciliously asks, “So you think that the climate will be safer with Türkiye hosting the COP and being COP President, do you?” No, I most certainly do not. As I see it, it was an unpalatable choice between Reggie and Ronnie. Nor am I in any way reassured by Minister Bowen serving as COP President for the purposes of negotiations.

This bizarre compromise suggests to me that the whole COP circus has lost its guiding star.

Norwegians’ right to roam I spent a couple of weeks on a boat going up and down the Norwegian coast recently and had the opportunity to discover a little about not just the fjords but also the Norwegian approach to life.

First thing to mention is that while it may feature prominently in many Australians’ knowledge about Norway, I don’t think that anyone ever mentioned their sovereign wealth fund, although locals do seem to be conscious that Norway is a relatively wealthy country (GDP per head around $140,000 compared with Australia’s $100,000).

What I did hear lots about is the Norwegians’ love of nature: camping, walking, swimming, fishing, sailing, skiing, horse and bike riding or just relaxing in the forests, mountains and coastal areas. Being close to nature seems to be absolutely central to Norwegians’ view of themselves regardless of whether they do actually experience it personally very often.

Greatly assisting Norwegians’ access to nature is _Allemannsretten_ (literally “every man’s right”), an important element of Norwegian cultural heritage (now enshrined in legislation) that gives people the freedom to roam over uncultivated countryside (woodlands, meadows, rivers, lakes, coastal islets and mountain summits) no matter who owns the land.

Provided they do no damage and respect others’ rights, people are also free to forage for fish, berries, mushrooms, flowers and the like.

The concept is nicely encapsulated in this paragraph I came across while browsing a cookbook (North Wild Kitchen by Nevada Berg): “The unwritten agreement is to take only what you need. This idea – it’s a way of life, really – reflects Norwegians’ respect for nature. Fulfilment comes not only from taking what we need, but also from ensuring that we leave something for others to enjoy as well. This, in turn, allows nature to replenish itself, and helps create a sustainable cycle.”

Norway’s Allemannsretten is much more comprehensive than Britain’s network of public footpaths and rights of way, of which the Brits are also rightly proud.

I’ve never understood why Australia has no public footpaths through the countryside. We have inherited so much common law from Britain, why not public rights of way? Our early governors failed us and Australians are poorer for their absence.

Losing the ashes Thousands of trees are burnt and killed in a major bushfire. What do you do with the charred skeletal remains? Assuming it’s safe to do so, you can just leave them standing and let them slowly decay, providing habitat for flora, fauna and microorganisms and returning nutrients to the soil and CO2 to the atmosphere. Or you might turn the burnt trees into biofuel or biochar. Or, if there’s any potentially useful wood beneath the ashes, you could fell the trees and mill the logs to produce timber for construction or whatever.

But what if there is no safe or functional option available? Well hello, biomass burial. The basic idea is that you fell the dead trees, dig a big hole in the ground, lay the trees neatly in the hole, cover it up with soil and gravel and leave the corpses there indefinitely. Fungi quickly consume all the surrounding oxygen to create a cool, dry, oxygen-free subterranean environment where the mortal remains are preserved for long periods, at least 100 years. This holds the carbon in the wood and prevents CO2 being released into the atmosphere to exacerbate global warming, which is what would happen if you just let the trees disintegrate on the surface.

Financially savvy readers will already be able to see what’s coming next. The funeral director tries to sell carbon credits to buyers (such as fossil fuel producers and steel companies) who want to offset rather than reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. For example, a company in Montana, USA, buried in one grave more than 10 million tons of trees killed by bushfire to generate about 5,000 tons of carbon removal credits which it hopes to sell for A$150-300 per ton (a total of, say, A$1 million), some of which will be shared with the landowner, possibly to plant more trees.

The advantage claimed for biomass burial is that the benefits for global warming begin immediately – i.e., the CO2 that would be slowly released into the atmosphere from day one as the dead trees are burnt or decompose on the surface doesn’t get released when the trees are buried. Also, if the landowner simply cleared the land and planted new trees to produce carbon credits, it would take years for the amount of CO2 sequestered by the growing trees to become significant, particularly in dry or cold climates (such as Montana) where trees grow slowly.

As with all carbon offset schemes, there are quality, monitoring and reporting issues that must be done properly and these have regrettably not been consistent features of many offset projects to date. However, without claiming to have any expertise in the chemistry of dead tree interment, I can see that this technique may generate legitimate carbon credits to buy time for those industries that do generate genuinely difficult to abate greenhouse gas emissions to sort themselves out, for instance steel and cement production but definitely not the fossil fuel and energy industries.

US gives mega-tax breaks and subsidies to fossil fuel companies Australians subsidise fossil fuel companies to the tune of $14.5 billion per year. Why the government is subsidising companies that are making a profit is hard to understand, particularly when most of the profits go overseas.

However, Australia looks parsimonious in comparison with the US. The national government currently hands $47 billion (I converted it to Aussie dollars) to fossil fuel companies each year. This will increase to $53 billion as a result of perks added in this year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And that’s not all. Additional subsidies in the tens of billions each year are provided at the state, county and municipal levels. Over 80 per cent of the subsidies go to the oil and gas industry.

You can learn more about US subsidies from Robert Reich’s short, light-hearted video. Older readers may recall that Reich worked in the Carter, Ford and Obama administrations and was Clinton’s Secretary of Labor.

Natural resources belong to everyone I saw the street art below (translated in the header) in Vardø, Norway, a small town of 1700 people which at 71oN is about as far north as you can go on mainland Europe. Contrary to what many would have us believe in Australia, you’re never too small to make your point and make a difference.

For comparison, you need to venture to the Antarctic continent to be at 71oS or, to put it another way, about as far south of Tasmania as Cape York is north.

As an aside, I’ve always thought of mainland Norway as a narrow country running north-south. What I hadn’t realised is how far it stretches east-west, roughly from 5oE to 31oE, about the same as the longitudinal spread between Melbourne and Perth. The easternmost point of mainland Norway is on the same longitude as Cairo.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.