UN climate change conferences need reforms if we still hope to fulfill Paris ambitions

With growing numbers of 'red lights' flashing, a key question for the future of humanity is how best to deliver effective global climate agreement and wider sustainability deals.

If we take the example of the annual UN Climate Change Conference, or COP, the number of people who take part in it has skyrocketed in the past few years compared with the early days, when the average attendance was as low as 5,000.

Since the pandemic, in particular, the numbers have grown dramatically. Just under 40,000 gathered in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2021 for COP26, for example, and about 50,000 attended COP27 in 2022 in the Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh.

Last year, a staggering 70,000 people took part in COP28 in Dubai. That was about three times the number who were at COP25 in Madrid in 2019, the last conference before the pandemic.

This trend has resulted in the transition of activity during COPs away from a core of important diplomatic negotiations toward what some think is more like a mass-market trade show. Calls are therefore growing for fundamental reforms to the UN-led climate-framework process. Quite simply, the existing architecture might no longer be fit for purpose.

Certainly, the Dubai event resulted, in typical COP fashion, in governments reaching a welcome, last-minute agreement during summit-negotiation “overtime.” It included some historic language about the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner sources of energy. Another welcome development was the inclusion of a 2030 global deforestation goal in the deal, along with positive wording about the role of indigenous communities. There was also hope that the agreement could help to more closely combine nature and climate issues.

The overall strategic goal of keeping global temperature rises to the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal agreed in Paris in 2015 now is in increasing peril

Andrew Hammond

The text of the deal also emphasized the importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems to help achieve the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. It included enhanced efforts to halt and reverse deforestation and forest degradation by 2030. Moreover, to ensure alignment with the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the COP28 deal also emphasized the importance of conserving biodiversity, including by halting and reversing degradation of terrestrial and marine ecosystems which also act as sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases. 

Yet, despite all these welcome advancements, the overall strategic goal of keeping global temperature rises to the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal agreed in Paris in 2015 now is in increasing peril. For instance, the Global South, indigenous peoples and island communities heavily criticized the so-called COP28 global stocktake, which is a fundamental component of the Paris Agreement used to monitor its implementation and evaluate collective progress toward agreed goals. Many concluded that current pledges of action mean world leaders are still a long way from honoring the promises they made to help keep the planet from warming to an average of 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Poorer countries also were frustrated by the lack of concrete plans to adapt to climate change — and the money to do so. There is very little in the COP28 text about climate finance, yet developing countries need hundreds of billions of dollars to help them make the transition away from fossil fuels.

Another criticism leveled by some stakeholders is that COP28 did not put enough emphasis on ongoing carbon-market negotiations, which collapsed following fraught discussions this month. Governments could not reach agreement on country-to-country trading regimes, or rules for the overall carbon market contained within the Paris agreement, meaning that all negotiations on the issue have been pushed to later this year.

Given the need for much more substantial climate results in the future, there are growing calls for fundamental reforms of the UN-led climate framework process. Optimists point to the growing numbers attending COPs and say this shows that the world is taking climate change more seriously. There is hopefully much truth in this. However, the process has become congested, too, and several COP negotiations have nearly collapsed.

This is, in part, why highly credible international statesmen such as former US Vice President Al Gore, a key architect of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty, propose reforms. This overhaul would include the requirement only for majority-voting decisions, and not unanimity, at COPs.

A key question now is how best to start advancing the agenda for COP29 and COP30 in Azerbaijan and Brazil respectively. There are several possible answers to that question, including the suggestion that negotiations should start now, so that all countries are prepared to reach clear agreements when the conferences take place in late 2024 and 2025 respectively.

These preliminary talks must include efforts to push key countries now to increase their ambitions and submit improved climate pledges, so there is still a chance of achieving the 1.5-degree warming limit, with a focus on phasing out fossil fuels.

Moving forward, however, there is a growing question mark over the very future of the COP events themselves, and whether they are the most effective way to advance the global climate agenda.

The calls are only likely to grow for a leaner, more focused forum through which to address the key issues in hand during the remaining years of what US President Joe Biden has described as a “decisive decade.”

With the world still on course for potentially disastrous levels of warming, this path might still be changed through proactive, concerted global action. This will require the world’s top diplomats to take greater charge of the process, and governments to throw their full weight behind delivering stronger outcomes.

Now is the time for all key countries, including global powers the US and China, to step up to the plate and urgently get around a table with the COP29 and COP30 hosts so that momentum can start to build well ahead of those summits.

In addition, the UN and other key actors need to assess the future viability of COPs and examine how a more focused forum might better address the massive challenges of global climate action in the coming years.

• Andrew Hammond is an associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.