Should Australia spend $32,000 on coffees for COP? Why Turnbull says yes

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The coffee cart has become an institution at the global climate conference, which draws close to 100,000 people a year. But this year, it’s gained some notoriety.

Antalya, Turkey: I was 45 minutes into the queue for a free double-shot latte at Australia’s stall at COP31, in the Turkish resort town of Antalya, when former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull walked past and was asked to defend it.

The coffee cart has become an institution at the global climate conference, which draws close to 100,000 people a year. But this year, it’s gained some notoriety.

Australia has hosted a coffee cart ever since it put on its first pavilion at Glasgow’s 2021 COP event. It was encouraged by opposition leader Angus Taylor, the energy minister at the time. It only took five minutes to get a latte in those early days. Then word got out and the lines got longer. We are world-renowned for our barista brews, after all.

Fast forward five years, and the wait for coffee is upwards of an hour, I was informed as I stood in line on Wednesday. (That’s far longer than the wait at any other country’s stall, and paled only next to the four-hour queue for access passes and two-hour traffic jams to get to the event.)

The queue length is not the only thing that’s changed. The beloved coffee cart has lost its fans in Coalition ranks as the opposition makes cutting spending on Labor’s so-called green agenda a centrepiece of its savings pitch.

Australia’s coffee initiative was this year budgeted at $32,100.95, according to data dug up by Coalition energy spokesperson Dan Tehan. “It’s especially galling that $32,000 has been allocated just for fancy coffee at a conference, when back home Aussies are being forced to cut back because of Labor’s cost of living crisis,” he said last week.

Newcorp’s The Daily Telegraph also jumped on the issue, interviewing those in line and asking foreign delegates to thank Australian taxpayers for their free flat white (which several did obligingly, by the looks of the Instagram footage).

So when Turnbull walked past Australia’s pavilion on Wednesday morning, he was soon asked for his thoughts.

″I don’t actually drink a lot of coffee, so I…

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