What is COP? | An explainer for climate newbies
COP 28 is being held from Nov 30 - Dec 12 and you may have seen some mentions of this on news, social media or conversations. If you're wondering what this 'COP 28' is all about, here is an explainer
What is COP?
COP stands for 'Conference of the parties'. And it is literally the biggest climate party in the world!
COP is for climate change what 'Davos WEF is for businesses' or 'Comicon is for comic fans' or ‘Coachella is for music fans’. If you work in climate in any way, it is the place to be.
On a serious note, COP is an annual UN climate conferences - government-level large-scale annual gatherings focused on climate action.
So who attends a COP?
COPs today see a wide range of attendees ranging government representatives, businessmen, economists, scientists, journalists, social impact players, activists and investors.
COP started out as a conference for government representatives, to come together to agree on targets and actions countries would take to address climate change.
But today, it is a lot more than that. There are a lot of events happening on the sidelines ranging from exhibitions of innovative technology, investor pitches to panel discussions.
How did this all start?
The UNFCCC secretariat (UN Climate Change) is the United Nations entity tasked with supporting the global response to the threat of climate change. It was established in 1992 at the Earth summit in Rio when countries adopted the UNFCCC.
One of the key events the UNFCCC organizes is COP - the Conference of Parties.
The first COP meeting was held in Berlin, Germany in March, 1995. Since then, a COP has been held every year across different cities of the world
What have been the most important achievements on COP over the years?
Some of the most notable treaties/ agreements coming out of COP are:
The Kyoto protocol (1997) - The Kyoto Protocol commits industrialised countries and economies in transition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The protocol called for reducing the emissions of 6 GHGs in 41 countries plus the European Union to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012
The Paris Agreement (2015) - In this agreement, countries agreed to reduce GHG emissions in order to limit the global rise in temperatures to 2 degrees (and try to keep it to 1.5 degrees) above the pre-industrial average (1850-1900)
What should we watch out for in COP 28?
The first global stocktake - It will be the first assessment of how countries are doing against the aspirations/ targets agreed on in the Paris agreement. It’s the first time we will if we are on track or how far away we are from the 1.5 degree target.
The loss and damage fund - The establishment of the loss and damage fund was agreed to in COP 27. However the details of operationalising the fund including who will pay into it, who will benefit from it and who will manage is expected to be finalised in COP 28
Fossil fuel: phase out or phase down? - There has been a lot of discussion and debate on the wording on fossil fuels that the final document that countries agree to in COP 28 will have. ‘Phase out’ means that countries commit to get fossil fuel usage down to 0 while ‘phase down’ means they will reduce it from current levels but continue to have some usage.
This is a very short explainer that was meant to give you a very basic understanding of what a COP is.
I will leave you with some resources that you may find useful if you want to understand this better or follow what is happening in COP 28
Official COP 28 site which has links to watch some of the sessions
What is COP? on ‘The climate question’ - a podcast by BBC
Can an oil exec successfully lead COP 28? on Zero - a podcast by Bloomberg
Who wants what at COP - A great interactive piece by Carbon Brief
Bloomberg green - A great resource for COP 28 coverage and climate news in general that has removed its paywall for the 2 weeks of COP!
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