Can Australia pay off Turkey to host COP31? The Brits did.

In a separate deal struck around the same time, Erdoğan was convinced to finally ratify the Paris Agreement — a global pact to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius and ideally to 1.5C — after Turkey was guaranteed financial support by the U.K., France, Germany and two development banks.

According to Chilcott’s Turkish counterpart, Mehmet Emin Birpınar, who was Ankara’s chief climate envoy until 2023, the U.K. also offered to back Turkey as the COP31 host. He criticized the U.K.’s Labour government, which came to power last year, for supporting Australia’s bid.

“Hypocrisy is everywhere,” said Birpınar. “I clearly remember that [the] U.K. promised to support Turkey,” specifically citing talks at the COP24 summit in Poland and at COP26 in Glasgow. “They promised us in all conversations,” he said. 

Other officials offered a different version of events. A spokesperson for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs said there were “no formal or informal records or memory” of the promise, and declined to comment on Chilcott’s version of events.

Chilcott also said he did not remember an explicit promise. “I’m sure it wasn’t on the list of things that we said we would do,” he said. “So I think if it came up at all — and if Mehmet says it came up, it may well have done — then it was probably just said over the table somewhere.”

A current U.K. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive diplomatic issue, said the U.K. government agreed to consider a future Turkish bid but did not make a formal offer of support and was clear that it would weigh the merits of all COP bids.