The Climate Change Conference of Parties: Annual COP Out?

As its 59,000 delegates scrambled to leave Belēm at the end of COP30 it is hard to escape the feeling that this annual UN sponsored ‘junket’ has entirely lost its way and purpose.

As the locations for hosting COP (United Nations Conference of Parties), become ever more exotic and eyebrow raising, is it perhaps time to revisit the entire architecture of climate negotiations, with each annual Conference now apparently ending in farce, disagreement and failure?

The annual COP process emerged as a central pillar of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), and is intended as an annual mechanism for reviewing progress in arresting atmospheric climate change. Under the Framework Agreement – unfortunately – it was decided to rotate these gatherings between the five UN ‘clusters’, explaining why COPs have occurred in such unlikely places as Marrakesh (twice), Bali, Baku and of course most recently on the edge of Amazonia in Belēm.

Over the three decades of Conferences, only a handful have made meaningful progress – most notably COP21 in Paris in 2015, when the Paris Agreement sought to limit atmospheric temperature rises to no more than 2^ჿ and preferably to within 1.5^ჿ relative to pre-industrial times. Paris also saw the most visible triumph of any COP so far, the five-year National Determined Contributions (NDCs) which set out how countries intend to reduce their emissions to be in line with the Paris Agreement, and thereafter reviewed in five-year cycles. The 2025 assessments are widely seen as a critical moment for global reassessment, and to determine if progress has gone, as expected, into reverse.

Belēm was controversial as a location even before the fleets of kerosene-burning private jets flew in from 190 countries. A tropical city on the edge of the Amazon and wholly unsuitable for the needs of nearly 60,000 delegates, areas of the Amazon were cleared in order to provide access roads and accommodation. During the Conference itself, there were protests, evacuations due to fires, problems with the water supply and extreme weather delaying progress.

Notably too, the United States stayed away, and fossil fuel producers got their way in avoiding all mention of the need to go faster in the transition away from coal, oil and gas (which was agreed at COP28), instead calling for ‘voluntary acceleration’ to achieve progress. Saudi Arabia said ‘each state must be allowed to build its own path, based on its respective circumstances and economies’, which was taken to mean ‘drill baby drill’. Whilst 190 countries attended, only 80 pushed for fossil fuels to be named in the final communiquē, a move ultimately voted down.  To add more irony, even as host country Brazil sought to agree a strong message on transition, it was issuing new drilling licenses for oil and gas in the Brazilian basin. It’s hard not to concede that the somewhat jaded annual COP process needs reform and a very thorough rethink.  

Central to every COP are the national government negotiations that ‘barter’ future action. However, given the anticipated level of failure, COP has instead become something of a cross between the PRI (Principles of Responsible Investment) in Person Conference¹ and the old Ideal Home Exhibition², where people go to network on the side-lines, do deals and of course, to virtue-signal in the multiple pavilions dedicated to boasting their climate-ready credentials and eco-technologies. Ethiopia, which inexplicably will host COP32 in 2027, was proud to announce its import ban of ICE automobiles, despite it being pointed out that the country (twice the size of France) has just 60 charging points, and where electricity remains variable in many areas³.

It remains an inconvenient truth that the world continues to debate, dally and argue as the climate continues to warm. Architecture, far too complex and action denying, is devised (especially in Europe) that deters and deflects from real world action. The UN is clear that the world will now exceed and surpass the 1.5^ჿ baseline rise, whilst atmospheric carbon hurtles towards the generally agreed ‘no return’ tipping point of 450ppm. When COP1 was held (in Berlin) in 1995, atmospheric carbon measured 358.96ppm – by October 2025 it had reached 424.87ppm⁴. In spite of its failures, COP30 can boast some modest success; the Tropical Forests Forever Facility, a Fund aimed at reversing tropical forest loss raised $6.5bn of an anticipated $125bn by the end of the Conference, with 90 countries calling for a ‘deforestation roadmap’. Elsewhere, financial reparation discussions remained locked in foot-shuffling avoidance, disagreement and anger.

Ultimately, COP30 serves as a reality check on the Conference of Parties roadshow, and on the limitations of what can now realistically be achieved in the febrile atmosphere of the ‘Trump era’. Increasingly a networking event where the committed hover in the shadows and fringes, the main purpose, reviewing and progressing the arrest of atmospheric climate change, has become ever more elusive. How mad is it to fly 60,000 people around the world to ever more inappropriate locations in order to argue over commas and interpretation of words – Emperor Nero, of course, famously had an answer to that.

¹ The PRI (Principles of Responsible Investment) in Person Conference held annually is rotated between the Americas, Europe and Asia. In 2025 the Conference was held in Brazil; in 2026 it will be in Amsterdam.

² The Ideal Home Exhibition, founded 1908 and renamed The Ideal Home is an annual, pavilion-based event bringing together everything one needs for the home, including new technologies, under one roof. 

³ Financial Times 3^rd December 2025

⁴ Atmospheric carbon as measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii Trends in CO2 - NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory