The Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi today rejected the offer of Turkey the two countries to co-host the United Nations climate summit next year, insisting it be hosted in Adelaide, in the southern Oceania nation.

“No, we will not be co-hosting,” Anthony Albanesi said, recalling that “there is no provision” for co-hosting such sessions under the rules of the United Nations Framework Convention against climate change.

“This is not an option and people know it is not an option, so it was put aside,” the prime minister added.

Australia and Turkey, which have both declared themselves candidates, are at an impasse over hosting this 31st United Nations climate change conference, due to be held in 2026. And this at the time COP30 is being held in Belém, Brazil.

As the host country for the conference must be chosen by consensus, neither country will take over the conference unless the other withdraws its candidacy or reach an agreement to share that responsibility.

This is an unprecedented situation that will result in the organisation of the next conference being assigned by default to Bonn, the city in western Germany that hosts the UN climate secretariat.

A Turkish diplomatic source told Agence France-Presse yesterday, Sunday, that his country “continues to advocate a co-chairmanship model” for the next COP.

Australia, by holding the next summit in Adelaide next to its Pacific island neighbours, is keen to draw attention to a region of the world that is at the forefront of the effects of climate change.

The country, which remains one of the world’s largest coal exporters and continues to heavily subsidize its fossil fuels, would be the first in the history of the Pacific region to host a COP on its soil.