It’s the biggest diplomatic event ever held in Australia. This city would be the perfect host

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s comment on Monday that he could not think of a better place to hold United Nations climate talks than Adelaide might have startled some observers from, say, Sydney and Brisbane.

If Australia is to co-host the COP (Conference of the Parties) talks with our Pacific neighbours next year as Albanese plans – an event that would be the largest diplomatic event ever held in this country – why not host them in a major capital city on the Pacific Ocean rather than a small one on the Southern Ocean?

There are some practicalities worth considering.

The first is that South Australia really wants to host the talks and is willing to contribute to the cost. “This is bigger than Ben-Hur,” said SA Premier Peter Malinauskas, the AFR reported. “COP is Gather Round, plus LIV Golf, plus WOMAD, plus the [Adelaide] Festival, plus Tour Down Under all together,” he added, rattling off a string of Adelaide’s major events.

When he put forward Adelaide as host late last year, he said the 30,000 potential attendees would benefit the state’s economy to the tune of $500 million. By contrast the NSW government has been silent on the issue and Queensland’s new Liberal National government is less exercised by climate than its Labor predecessor.

The event would be held days before the next Victorian election, effectively knocking Melbourne out of contention. And as Albanese points out, South Australia does have a story to tell in tackling climate change.

It is a global leader in the energy transition, ramping up its renewable energy share from about 1 per cent of capacity to 76 per cent in just over 16 years, with a goal of reaching net 100 per cent by 2027. For a nation like Australia, that has a patchy history in its decarbonisation efforts, this is a startling achievement.

None of this will count for much if Australia does not win the right to host the event, which depends on two things. Firstly, its only serious competition, Turkey, will have to pull out, and secondly, Labor will have to win the coming election.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has declared it would be “madness” to hold the COP in the midst of a cost of living crisis.