Summary

  • COP31’s agreed modalities divide host and Action Agenda responsibilities from delegated leadership of negotiations; they do not transfer the Parties’ authority to decide.
  • A public record that names who proposes, convenes, drafts, consults and decides would make the arrangement testable without pretending that it has already caused a problem.

The map is already on paper

The most consequential thing about COP31’s leadership arrangement is not that it has two prominent names. It is that its authority is divided across different functions, and the division is unusually explicit.

Under the Türkiye–Australia Partnership Modalities, a representative of Türkiye is to be nominated for election as COP31 President when the conference opens. The President-Designate assigns an Australian representative as President of Negotiations and delegates the functions of leading the negotiations. The modalities say that person will have “exclusive authority in relation to the negotiations.” They also provide that the two leaders consult, and that if their views differ, consultation continues until they reach mutual satisfaction. Australia’s representative is to be nominated as a COP Vice-President.

This is a written allocation, not a report of what happened in a negotiating room. The provisional agenda still lists the election of the COP President, adoption of rules and adoption of the agenda as business for the session. As of 6 October, Murat Kurum is nominated, not yet elected. Chris Bowen is identified as President of Negotiations. A careful account must keep those statuses distinct.

The distinction matters because “presidency” can sound like one indivisible power. Here it is a bundle. Türkiye is the host, takes on operational and logistical responsibilities and is responsible for the COP31 Action Agenda. The Australian President of Negotiations is tasked with carrying forward mandates arising from negotiated outcomes, convening consultations through the year, handling negotiation communications, selecting ministerial and other co-facilitators when needed, leading the negotiation agenda including draft texts, and acting as the focal point for UNFCCC engagement on negotiations.

The Action Agenda is another track. It seeks to mobilize voluntary action beyond the formal decisions Parties negotiate and adopt. The modalities assign it to Türkiye while also promising joint work with Australia and Pacific island countries. Australia, in partnership with Pacific island countries, is to set the Pacific Pre-COP agenda, preside over that meeting and manage its operations. Those responsibilities can shape attention, proposals and political momentum. They are not the same as authority to adopt a COP decision.

Delegation is not decision sovereignty

The word “exclusive” deserves neither erasure nor exaggeration. In the modalities, it describes the Australian negotiator’s authority “in relation to the negotiations,” delegated by the incoming COP President for the conference. It does not say that Australia can decide for Parties, replace the COP’s procedural rules, or enact a draft text without Party agreement. The same document locates formal election and conference functions within the UNFCCC’s draft rules of procedure.

That boundary is a principal-agent question. Parties authorize a process and negotiate its outcomes. A conference president and a designated negotiation lead perform important tasks within that process. The people who chair, convene or draft can influence what receives attention and when; that practical influence is real. But task performance is not the same as the authority to bind Parties. A transparent institution should make both sides visible: the agent’s delegated room to act and the principal’s retained decision right.

The distinction also protects the Action Agenda from being oversold. An announced target, champion, pledge platform or partnership can matter to implementation. It is not automatically an agreed treaty obligation. The modalities contemplate a COP31 session on Small Island Developing States’ climate-finance needs and a platform for pledges to the Pacific Resilience Facility. That could connect attention to resources, but a platform for pledges is not itself a funding commitment, and an Action Agenda initiative is not a negotiated COP decision.

Nor does a Pacific setting settle the question of mandate. The modalities promise a Pacific Pre-COP, with Australia and Pacific island countries setting its agenda together. UNFCCC describes the 5–8 October gathering as a chance to bring leaders and decision-makers to the region and showcase Pacific perspectives and action. That is a potentially valuable agenda-setting channel. It does not make every participant a delegate authorized to negotiate for all Parties, nor does it guarantee that a concern raised there enters a draft or survives bargaining.

The same caution applies to observers generally: accreditation permits attendance under UNFCCC rules; it is not a vote.

Accountability should follow the hand-offs

The design’s test will be its hand-offs. When a mandate from an earlier decision is carried forward, can readers identify the mandate and the official responsible? When consultations are convened, can Parties see who participated and what issue was open? When draft text appears, is its facilitator and procedural status clear? When a proposal moves from negotiation into voluntary action, is the point at which Party authority ends stated plainly?

The agreed modalities already provide a skeleton for answering these questions. They name roles, enumerate functions and specify consultation between the two leaders. A modest public authority map could make that skeleton usable: one line for formal Party procedure; one for the COP President’s procedural functions; one for delegated negotiation leadership; one for host logistics and the Action Agenda; and one for Pre-COP and Pacific partnership.

For each major cross-track initiative, a short log could identify the originating mandate, who proposed it, who convened discussion, who drafted, which Parties were consulted, who must decide, and what remains pending.

That would not require publishing confidential negotiating positions or exposing informal diplomacy. It would separate public process facts from private bargaining. Nor should the map imply that consultation equals consent. The modalities' promise to consult and resolve differences to mutual satisfaction governs the relationship between the incoming leaders; the Parties’ own authority over negotiated outcomes remains a different matter.

The Host Country Agreement entered into force on 18 September, and the official Pre-COP is under way from 5 to 8 October. These are concrete steps in delivery, not evidence yet of COP31’s negotiating performance. The conference is scheduled for 9–20 November in Antalya. Its provisional agenda gives the session the work of electing its President and organizing its proceedings. Until that work occurs, the public should not be asked to treat an incoming arrangement as a completed election or an announced initiative as a conference result.

A fair test, not a prediction

There is no basis, before the meeting, to declare the split model confused, captured, successful or more inclusive. The design could clarify responsibility by placing distinct functions with leaders who can focus on them. It could also make cross-track accountability harder if hand-offs remain implicit. Those are hypotheses to test against records, not conclusions to publish in advance.

The useful question is therefore not whether two presidencies are inherently good or bad. It is whether authority remains traceable as work moves from consultation to drafting, from drafting to Party decision, and from formal negotiation to voluntary action. An authority map will not settle contested climate policy. It can show who is empowered to do what, under which instrument, and who still has the right to decide.

That is the minimum standard for an arrangement that gives negotiation leadership a specifically delegated and unusually visible mandate. Participation must remain meaningful without being mistaken for authorization; delegation must be usable without becoming invisible sovereignty. COP31’s leaders have put a division of labour on paper. The conference should make its boundaries legible in practice.