On the banks of the Amazon River delta, business and government officials, campaigners and lobbyists are holed up in meeting rooms in an effort to come up with ideas and action-plans to prevent an impending climate crisis.
Every delegation has its interests, and negotiations at UN climate talks are all about compromise. Which is a problem Australia knows all too well as it engages in parallel negotiations of its own in Belém.
For some time now, there's been a deadlock between Australia and Turkey over who will host next year's meeting – and it all needs to be ironed out by the end of next week when the talks come to a close. If no agreement between the two is reached, hosting will default to the German city of Bonn, where the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is headquartered.
Brazil would have preferred the matter be sorted out much sooner, mindful that the quiet chatter in COP corridors about the next presidency will soon become deafening, with neither side backing down.
Back in 2022, Australia put together a convincing proposition of co-hosting COP31 with the Pacific.
