Every year, thousands of representatives of governments, industry and civil society gather at a Conference of States Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to discuss and agree on measures to protect the climate, centrally through commitments to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. A worthy goal, but do the COP’s deliver on this? Assessments of international progress to date, suggest that this is not yet the case.
In 1995, when the first COP was held, global CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel consumption and the flaring of natural gas were an estimated 24 billion tonnes per annum, and the average temperature was between 0.4 and 0.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels. By 2024, after 30 years of COP meetings, global CO₂ emissions have continued to increase to an estimated 41.6 billion tonnes and average temperature has risen to close to 1.3 degrees above pre-industrial levels. More CO₂ has been emitted since the world’s first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report in 1990 than had been emitted in all of previous history.
One problem is that vested interests, such as from the fossil fuel industry, wield considerable power and undue influence in the COP process. In recent years, their numbers have dwarfed the number of representatives from Indigenous and human rights observers, not to mention climate vulnerable nations (see Over 1,700 coal, oil and gas lobbyists granted access to COP29). Indeed, both the 2023 and 2024 COPs were hosted by Member States with considerable interests in the fossil fuel industry, with government ministers even using the occasion of the COPs to forge new fossil fuel deals (see COP29 is for oil deals by Global Witness and Dystopian satire: COP28 conference hosted by petrostate by The Australia Institute).
In early November 2024, Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape suggested that the COPs “are a total waste of time” and withdrew from the upcoming COP in Azerbaijan. He noted a particular concern that the COPs have not been successful in moving high carbon emitters to support carbon sinks such as forests. Also boycotting COP29, but for a different reason, was Greta Thunberg, a young champion for the climate who has inspired millions of young people around the world to take climate action (see Greta Thunberg calls site of COP29 climate summit ‘beyond absurd’, Washington Post).
Recognising such concerns, but also affirming the importance of the COPs as the primary forum to build global cooperation on climate protection, the Club of Rome/Earth4All and Al Gores’ Climate Reality Project (supported by the Climate Governance Commission) have published a letter, calling for a reform of the annual UN climate negotiations (COP) to make them more fair, effective and results-oriented. In an Open Letter on COP Reform, the signatories call for:
- Streamlining COPs to make them smaller and implementation-oriented;
- Strengthening accountability for implementation of COP commitments;
- Improving the tracking of climate financing;
- Amplifying the role of science, including through establishing a permanent COP scientific advisory body;
- Establishing a Climate-Poverty Policy Envoy to ensure better recognition of the links between climate change and poverty and implementation of effective policies to address this;
- Ensure fair representation of the breadth of stakeholders at COPs, e.g. limiting the number of fossil fuel lobbyists who currently dominate the COPs and increasing representation of indigenous and marginalised communities, most of whom currently can’t afford to participate;
- Introducing strict host eligibility criteria so that countries which do not support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy do not serve as COP hosts.
Such reforms, supported by high-level experts, could make a considerable difference in elevating the performance of COPs. As such, the Open Letter was picked up by mainstream media covering COP 29, including Reuters, the BBC and The Guardian, among many others.
According to the signatories of the letter, “The Paris agreement and subsequent COP decisions have laid a robust foundation for the global policy framework on climate action. Now, we must work together with urgency and purpose, transforming the climate COP so that it can take strategic, action-oriented and accountable decisions to deliver the scale of ambition commensurate with the defining challenge of our time.”
The proposed COP reforms could be supplemented by a strengthening of other environmental governance mechanisms – such as the UN Environment Assembly and the International Court of Justice – and by establishing additional mechanisms such as an International Environment Court, International Anti-Corruption Court and a Planetary Emergency Platform (see MEGA proposals).
Together, these enhanced governance mechanisms could ensure the fulfilment of climate obligations, in order to reverse the current climate trajectory, protect the climate for current and future generations, and restore livelihoods, communities and ecosystems that have already been severely damaged by climate change.
