COP31: What Is the Difference Between Hosting and Presiding, and What Do Official Texts Say?

Why It Matters

A UN climate conference has two distinct leadership layers. The host is the government that provides the venue and the logistics, and the President is the person elected by the Parties to chair the negotiations. For COP31, public announcements say Türkiye will host in Antalya, while the negotiating-leadership arrangement has been described as shared with Australia. Readers should check the exact wording of that arrangement against UNFCCC and government texts, and this guide flags where details remain unconfirmed.

Background

How a UN climate conference is built

The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the supreme body of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It meets annually. Its work is serviced by the UNFCCC secretariat in Bonn, headed by an Executive Secretary, and prepared by two subsidiary bodies: the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI).

The key roles are separate:

• Host government. It offers to host, signs a host country agreement with the UNFCCC secretariat, and funds and runs the venue, security, accreditation support and local logistics. The secretariat handles the conference's substantive servicing.
• COP President. The plenary elects the President at the opening of each session. By long practice the President is a senior official of the host country, often the environment or foreign minister. The President chairs plenary meetings, appoints facilitators and "pairs" of ministers to unblock issues, and steers Parties toward a final package.
• Secretariat. It is neutral. It supplies procedural and technical support but does not negotiate for Parties.
• Negotiating groups. Parties negotiate in blocs such as the G77 and China, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), the Least Developed Countries group, the Arab Group, the African Group of Negotiators, the European Union and the Umbrella Group. The President does not belong to any of them while chairing.
• Troika. The outgoing, current and incoming Presidencies coordinate for continuity.

What the rules say about rotation

The UNFCCC has never formally adopted its rules of procedure in full. The draft rules (document FCCC/CP/1996/2) are applied by practice, except the rule on voting, which remains unagreed. As a result, decisions are taken by consensus. The draft rules and subsequent practice call for equitable geographical representation among officers and for the Presidency to rotate among the five UN regional groups: African States, Asia-Pacific States, Eastern European States, Latin American and Caribbean States, and Western European and Other States (WEOG).

Recent Presidencies illustrate the cycle: COP27 in Egypt (Africa), COP28 in the United Arab Emirates (Asia-Pacific), COP29 in Azerbaijan (Eastern Europe) and COP30 in Brazil (Latin America and the Caribbean). The turn after COP30 passes to WEOG, the group that includes Western European states, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and Türkiye. Regional groups choose their own candidates by consensus, and that choice is then confirmed by the COP.

How Antalya came to be COP31's host

Both Türkiye and Australia had put forward candidacies within WEOG. According to public statements around the COP30 outcome in Belém (November 2025), the two governments reached a compromise instead of a contest. The widely reported elements are:

• Türkiye hosts COP31 in Antalya, with Türkiye's Minister of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, Murat Kurum, as the incoming COP President.
• Australia holds a role described as leading the negotiations, associated with Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen.
• A pre-COP preparatory meeting is expected in the Pacific region.

Two cautions apply. First, the formal standing of a separate "negotiation president" is not defined in the UNFCCC's draft rules of procedure. Its exact powers, and how they sit alongside the elected COP President, depend on what the COP decision and the host country agreement say, so readers should confirm them in those documents once published. Second, the dates and venue details should be taken from the UNFCCC's own COP31 page and Turkish government announcements rather than from press summaries. For a wider overview of why Antalya was chosen and what is expected on the agenda, see the sister analysis COP31 in Antalya: Why Is Türkiye Hosting and What Will Be on the Table?.

Key Players & Positions

Other Parties' reactions to the arrangement are best read in their own submissions and statements rather than in secondary summaries. Island and developing-country blocs generally focus on whether the arrangement protects negotiating balance, finance and adaptation priorities, while some observers have raised procedural questions about a split role. Where such views are cited, check the original text of the statement.

Source Comparison

A useful method is to read each claim twice: once in a press report and once in the primary text. Our guide to the primary source landscape, The Source Map: Where to Find Türkiye's Official Texts and How to Cite Them, shows where to find Presidency, ministry and TBMM documents. To weigh the tone of an official announcement, see How to Read a Turkish Foreign Ministry Statement: Policy Signal or Rhetoric?.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• COP (Conference of the Parties): the UNFCCC's decision-making body, meeting annually.
• Host country agreement: the legal arrangement between the UNFCCC secretariat and the host government covering venue, privileges and immunities, and security.
• COP President: the elected chair of the session. Unlike the host, this is a person, not a state.
• Negotiation president (as used for COP31): a descriptive term used in announcements for the person leading negotiating work; its formal status is not defined in the draft rules of procedure and should be confirmed in the final texts.
• WEOG: the Western European and Others Group, one of five UN regional groups used for rotation.
• Consensus: adoption without formal objection. The rule on voting remains unagreed, so the President cannot force a result.
• Zero Waste: Türkiye's national and now UN-recognised waste prevention and circular-economy initiative.
• Annex I / Annex II: UNFCCC lists of developed and transition economies; Annex II states carry financing obligations. Türkiye is in Annex I but not Annex II.

Related guides on reading official sources:

• Editorial Principles and Primary Source Standards explains how we separate fact from position.
• The Lexicon: How Contested Words Shape Coverage of Türkiye shows how word choice shapes reporting.
• How to Read a UN Secretary-General Report on Cyprus: Whose Words Are Whose? offers a model for reading UN-language documents.
• About By the Text: Reading Türkiye's Record in Its Own Words sets out our mission and approach.

For wider diplomatic context, see also "The World Is Bigger Than Five": Türkiye's UN Security Council Reform Vision and COP31 Climate Diplomacy.

Perspective note: By the Text presents global and regional affairs with a dedicated perspective from Türkiye. Sections marked 'Türkiye's Position' reflect official Turkish policy as stated by Turkish government sources.

By the Text Editorial Team