Turkey will host the next U.N. climate talks, the fourth time in five years an authoritarian government has hosted the COP event.
United Nations climate officials announced Thursday that Turkey will host the 2026 Conference of Parties, COP31, making it the fourth time in five years that the climate talks are held in a country under authoritarian rule.
Australia and Turkey had both placed bids to host the next COP. Under U.N. rules, the host country rotates among five regional groups of countries with the host agreed upon by consensus. In this case, neither country conceded until Wednesday when Australia withdrew its bid in a compromise: Australia will control the COP31 presidency, while Turkey provides the venue. Turkey has proposed hosting COP31 in the Mediterranean resort city Antalya. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decade-long rule has been one of democratic decay and increasing oppression and authoritarianism. Prior to this year’s event in Brazil, other recent COPs also took place in countries with autocratic rule: COP29 in Azerbaijan, COP28 in the United Arab Emirates and COP27 in Egypt. “Unfortunately, authoritarianism is on the rise around the world and that affects many aspects of geopolitics and multilateral engagement,” Rachel Cleetus, senior director for the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists , told Newsweek via email. The host country and city often influence the focus and outcome of the climate talks. For COP30, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, chose Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River, to highlight the Amazon and the importance of tropical forests in the climate fight. It was a bold decision to bring COP30 to the Amazon. Belem has limited infrastructure and has struggled to accommodate the influx of tens of thousands of people. Transportation problems abound, lodging was limited and construction on some COP pavilions was still underway the night before the event opened. One of those pavilions caught fire Thursday, forcing the evacuation of thousands of delegates and throwing the remaining schedule into uncertainty. Protesters have blocked the main entrance to the COP30 “Blue Zone” of official proceedings more than once, and an incursion beyond the security gates last week led to some violence and minor injuries. Thousands of climate activists and Indigenous people marched peacefully in Belem’s sunbaked streets in a massive rally Saturday, and side events across the city have drawn attention to forest protection, ocean conservation and Indigenous rights. Inside, serious-minded speakers compete with bursts of music and chanting from neighboring pavilions. Street-theater style protests feature costumed “fossil fuel dinosaurs” leading singalongs in the main hallway. Indigenous group representatives in traditional headdresses shout to be heard through their cell phones as they walk from meeting to meeting. Air conditioning in the converted airport hangar that houses COP30 has been uneven, and parts of the venue become stifling as outside temperatures and humidity soar through the tropical afternoons. COP30 has been a raucous and occasionally chaotic event, equal parts frustrating and fascinating. Far more freedom is on display in Belem than at other recent COPs, and freedom is often messy. The United Arab Emirates spared no expense to make things run smoothly at the sprawling expo city in Dubai that housed COP28, and there were certainly no masses of protesters disrupting COP29 last year in Baku, Azerbaijan. The independent research group Freedom House assigns scores of 1 to 100 to all the world’s countries, assessing the civil liberties and political freedoms residents enjoy. The higher the score, the freer the country. Brazil merits a score of 72, solidly in the “free” range of the organization’s scoring. Egypt and the UAE score just 18 and Azerbaijan a paltry seven, making them among the world’s least free places. Freedom House finds that Turkey, with a score of 33, is “not free.” Turkey veered further into authoritarianism in March when the mayor of Istanbul, the leading political opponent to President Erdogan, was arrested and jailed. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Gonul Tol, director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkish Program, called it “a momentous step toward full-fledged autocracy.” Turkey has a mixed climate record as well. While the country has grown its renewable energy and put its net-zero goals into law, Turkey is also the largest user of coal-fired power, and the Erdogan government is promoting further use of natural gas. Climate Action Tracker, a project by the nonprofits Climate Analytics and New Climate Institute, rate Turkey’s climate plans “critically insufficient” and out of step with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, noting that “the government’s clear intention to increase the country’s reliance on fossil fuels leaves its climate intentions in doubt.” The Freedom House gives the U.S. a scores of 84, although that may soon drop due to what Rachel Cleetus of UCS called t...
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