\u2018Strong outcome\u2019 <\/p>\n
Bowen is contending not just with a historic oil shock but an energised coalition of nations demanding a faster phase-out of fossil fuels \u2013 the main driver of human-caused global warming.<\/p>\n
COP31 is being organised and chaired by Turkey but Bowen is steering the marathon talks under an unusual arrangement struck after Canberra and Ankara competed to host the world\u2019s most important climate summit.<\/p>\n
In the months ahead, he must lay the groundwork for consensus between nearly 200 nations even as the war rattles energy markets, nations scramble for fuel supply and climate change slips down the priority list.<\/p>\n
Bonn is where government negotiators meet every June to hammer out technical details and narrow differences over global climate action before leaders tackle the bigger decisions at COP31.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re talking to parties about what they want to see, and we\u2019ll try and steer that to a very strong outcome,\u201d said Bowen, who attended the past four COPs as a minister in Prime Minister Anthony Albanese\u2019s centre-left Government.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s summit in Brazil ended with a modest pact that failed to explicitly mention fossil fuels and many nations fear a repeat unless stronger leadership is shown.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the climate-vulnerable Alliance of Small Island States said countries could not keep ignoring \u201cthe elephant in the room\u201d and warned that anything short of winding down fossil fuels was \u201cpapering over the cracks\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u2018Hard\u2019 job <\/p>\n
Frustrated by a lack of progress at the last summit, nearly 60 nations attended a world-first meeting in Colombia in April dedicated to speeding up the transition away from fossil fuels \u2013 outside the UN process.<\/p>\n
Bowen said the breakaway conference in Santa Marta was \u201ca positive contribution\u201d \u2013 but did not say how their concerns might be incorporated into a final negotiated outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cConsensus arrives in November with hard work. I didn\u2019t take this job because I thought it\u2019d be easy, I didn\u2019t come here to do the easy things. I took this job because it is hard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Many countries have criticised the consensus-based model by which decisions at COPs can be blocked by a small handful of countries but Bowen said \u201cthat\u2019s what we\u2019ve got. And that\u2019s not going to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said countries big and small remained in some way dependent on fossil fuels \u2013 including Australia, a major coal and gas exporter, yet highly reliant on imports for petrol, diesel and other fuels.<\/p>\n
Bowen cancelled his first trip abroad as COP31 negotiations chief in April when an oil refinery caught fire in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistorically, Australia is without doubt a climate villain, but it can also use its status as a major fossil fuel producer to lead the conversation on transitioning away from fossil fuels,\u201d Simon Bradshaw, COP31 lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, told AFP in Bonn.<\/p>\n
Bowen said every country \u201chas a fossil fuel profile\u201d and that \u201cwe\u2019re all in this together\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not all the job of importers. It\u2019s not all the job of exporters. That\u2019s what a COP is for \u2013 bring all parties together.\u201d<\/p>\n
The COPs \u201csend a signal to the rest of the world\u201d that the issue is being taken seriously, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to give a very positive signal. I\u2019m confident we can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
– AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Strong outcome\u2019 Bowen is contending not just with a historic oil shock but an energised coalition of nations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[5474,3937,4442,94380,3054,3806,273,25078,43007,1333,53906,11556,10110,9878,5971,25900,111,139,69,6662,2572,38606,77019,147,23850,6642,61,6859,88837,3270],"class_list":["post-467283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-afp","tag-chief","tag-climate","tag-cop31","tag-criticism","tag-east","tag-environment","tag-fossil","tag-fuels","tag-get","tag-incoming","tag-losing","tag-middle","tag-monday","tag-need","tag-negotiations","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-off","tag-president","tag-rejected","tag-relevance","tag-science","tag-summit","tag-tells","tag-to","tag-told","tag-underscored","tag-we"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}