Harry Kewell was his neighbour, Paul Keating was his hero. The making of climate change minister Chris Bowen

Bowen first announced Australia would bid to host the talks in 2022. It would be a Pacific COP, at which Australia would focus global attention on the existential threat to small island nations, securing crucial international finance for its neighbours, thereby deepening security ties with them as China sought to exert its influence in the region. Australia looked locked-in, holding nearly the total support of its UN group, whose turn it was to select the host. All except for Turkey, which soon launched its own bid.

Most believed Turkey would eventually pull out, as it had in the past, after a little diplomatic wheel-grease had been applied. Not this time. Worse, when last year’s November talks in Brazil approached, the last viable deadline for a positive decision, it began to look like Bowen did not have the full support of his most senior colleagues.

This was a critical blow for the bid, say several observers who spoke with Good Weekend but asked not to be named. Only the Department of Foreign Affairs could properly manage an effort like this, said one former diplomat, and it seemed absent. Another international observer said Bowen needed the PM’s overt backing, yet when he landed in Brazil, Albanese was absent. Still, Bowen talked a big game on arrival. “Let me make it clear – we’re not going anywhere,” he told reporters. “It’s the fight we’ve got to have because it is very much in Australia’s interests, and I believe in the world’s interest, having Australia as the president of COP31.”

Albanese effectively ended the push by remote control by telling a press conference in Perth that if Turkey did not back down, Australia would not veto its bid. This was widely read as something close to sabotage, though Bowen disputes this. Albanese did not comment for this story.

When news of Albanese’s comments broke, Bowen was wrestling with Turkey’s climate change minister Murat Kurum to secure his fallback position: the right to oversee negotiations at a COP Turkey would host, and to hold a beefed-up pre-COP meeting in the Pacific, which ultimately took place in Fiji. “To the degree [Albanese’s comments were] difficult, it was the perception that Australia was conceding in the middle of me negotiating to extract the negotiating rights,” says Bowen.

“It was tough,” he concedes. “I was in a tough negotiation as it was, but we got the result. We didn’t win the physical COP hosting rights, but we got the opportunity to chair the negotiations. If I had a choice about which part to take, that is what I would take.”

Burke denies that Bowen’s cabinet colleagues ran cold on the bid, though he agrees some feared holding the event in Australia posed political risks. “The big thing we wanted to deliver was for the Pacific, and we got the Pacific outcome. You don’t need a long conversation to know how important that is to the prime minister and to the foreign minister.” He says cabinet remains unified behind Bowen’s climate efforts.

Amanda McKenzie, CEO of the Climate Council, says Bowen has been remarkably successful, even though the nation is off track to meet key climate targets. His job, she says, has been complicated by the combined opposition of conservative media, parties and political activists. Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, felled by his party over climate, agrees. “I don’t know who is hated most by [NewsCorp Australia’s 24-hour news channel] News24, Matt Kean, me or Chris Bowen. Probably Chris Bowen.”

Why are the attacks so heated? “Because he is an effective and determined advocate,” says Turnbull, who believes conservatives have adopted a religious opposition to any action on climate. Still, he expects Bowen to be vindicated. When Turnbull advanced climate policies, renewables were the more expensive option. That’s no longer the case.

Behyad Jafari, founding chief executive of the Electric Vehicle Council and now with the Minderoo Foundation, worked closely with Bowen on policy to reduce vehicle emissions standards and increase EV uptake. He backs Bowen, too. “The Liberal Party came out the other day with a hit list of all the things that they would change, it was [a list of] everything that Bowen had managed to get passed. These are each pretty significant reforms, so if you don’t like these things, and he’s the one who keeps getting them done, he becomes the easy enemy.”

Jafari says Bowen is the most impressive minister he has engaged with at federal or state level; hardworking, methodical, across detail and, tellingly, a little formal. “Dealing with him, it never felt to me like we were chummy friends getting on. A lot of politicians can be pretty charming, and make it sort of very relational. With Bowen, it was always about the work and you knew exactly where you stood.”

Burke, who as Home Affairs Minister keeps abreast of threats against public figures, says the savagery of the attacks on Bowen goes beyond normal political rhetoric. Bowen, he notes, is among a handful of senior ministers to have extra security assigned to him. “Climate change has been debated very differently in Australia to most of the world, and there is this extreme culture war, conspiracy-theory stuff attached to it all,” says Burke. “If he hadn’t been so successful in the portfolio, then the attacks might not have been as sharp.”

Days later, Canberra reeled from the attack on MP Helen Haines. “It’s not really Australia, is it,” Bowen observed. “Our democracy is built around robust, respectful debate and all MPs must be able to live their lives free of fear.”

Ask about Bowen among his antagonists and a few words keep coming up. Arrogant, smug, condescending, among them. “His delivery can be a bit punchy,” concedes a supporter. Not surprisingly, Liberal energy spokesman Dan Tehan goes in harder. “There is a grandiosity there. He lets his ego run ahead of himself. What has he actually done? We didn’t win COP. We ended up with pre-COP. He then talked up a big game for pre-COP and he failed to deliver, none of the leaders turned up.” (This was not strictly true, but far fewer attended than expected.) “He promised the $275 [electricity price cut] and there’s never been any sort of apology. That’s why he has become a lightning rod.”

Conservative commentator Tom Switzer first met Bowen as an undergraduate at the University of Sydney. He disagrees with Bowen on just about everything, yet considers him a friend, and among the smartest politicians in office. He fears the strength of the rhetoric directed at him is often excessive, evidence of American-style polarisation in Australia, but says anger at his policies among conservative critics is legitimate and deeply felt.

“When conservatives see him prosecuting the case for slashing the carbon footprint when other countries aren’t doing it, that’s when people think he’s not really reflecting the national interest.” But Switzer reckons there might be more to it. “There’s obviously something about him that’s off-putting when he makes his case, like he is doing it with excessive zeal.”

Bowen rejects criticism he is arrogant or grandiose and insists the heat will not make him change course, though he laments that his wife and university-aged children have been witness to ugly moments in public. “You’re dealing with the rise of the far right around the world and in Australia, driven by climate disinformation. To get the job done you’ve got to be determined. Do I plead guilty to determination? Absolutely. Does that determination come across to some as arrogance? Probably, almost certainly, but the transition won’t happen if you don’t have that.”

Sitting in his study, braced by walls of political biographies, he admits he is an introvert by nature, one who built a public face for politics. “I mean, I’m happy to sit here reading a book, right? But you don’t convince anyone else of anything by doing that. So you’ve got to get out and tell your story.”

In the coming days, Bowen will travel to Turkey to lead COP negotiations, and there his negotiation skills will be tested in acid. He must ensure his working relationship with Turkish climate minister Murat Kurum does not falter, he must find universal consensus from nations whose interests vary wildly, and he must do so having spent much of the year focused on the Iran fuel crisis rather than on crucial climate diplomacy.

Even in the best circumstances, managing COP negotiations is almost impossibly complex, says Jennifer Morgan, a former Greenpeace International chief who served as Germany’s climate envoy between 2022 and 2025, as Bowen was building his reputation among climate negotiators. Bowen, she says, is well known and well regarded in COP circles, though there are concerns that his compromise role could complicate proceedings.

“When you become the COP president, you’re no longer the representative of your country, you become the representative of the world, in a way,” says Morgan. “You’re the one who has to bring all these countries together, you have to consider the interests of the small islands versus the interests of countries in the Gulf. You have to have a moral compass. In my experience with minister Bowen, he has those attributes.”

Back in Fairfield, it’s been two days since the pre-COP event in Fiji finished, and media coverage has been brutal. Much has been made of the low leadership turnout, the cost, and of footage that appeared to show Bowen dozing off during one session. “A farce”, concluded Tehan. Pacific leaders were kinder, saying the event put their existential threat at the heart of the global process, though they did not shy away from reminding Bowen that Australia was failing them with its continued export of fossil fuels.

Bowen seems chipper, despite the blowback, as he begins another Saturday morning fuel update. “OK, thanks for coming, everyone,” he begins, before diving into detail. Australia has 43 days’ worth of petrol, which is two days more than my update last week. We have 31 days’ worth of diesel, which is one day less than last week’s update, and we have 30 days’ worth of jet fuel…

Later, we talk on the phone as Bowen is walking his dog. As we speak, the right-wing political gabfest CPAC is on in Brisbane; Angus Taylor, Pauline Hanson and Matt Canavan are headline speakers. Bowen’s name is raised constantly, a pantomime villain, each time drawing cheers and jeers from the crowd.

In the morning, Bowen will return to Canberra for another sitting week. Is he preparing for a question-time attack over Fiji? “No, not really. They don’t target me so much any more. I always have answers.” Adding, after a pause: “I wish they would.”

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