Christina Persico
Auckland, November 11, 2024
What is COP?
In short, it stands for the Conference of the Parties.
Countries that have joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meet once a year at said Conference of the Parties to measure progress and negotiate joint responses to climate change.
The UNFCCC is a treaty adopted in 1992 to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations “at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system.”
The treaty came out of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the ‘Earth Summit,’ held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992.
Since entering into force in 1994, the UNFCCC has provided the basis for international climate negotiations, including agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Paris Agreement (2015).
The first COP meeting was held in Berlin, Germany in March 1995.
However, COP is also used in other UN lingo, for example, the recent biodiversity COP held in Colombia.
Where and when is COP?
COP29 will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from November 11 to 22, 2024.
It is a city on Azerbaijan’s eastern coast, jutting into the Caspian Sea. It features a promenade along the Caspian Sea (the Boulevard), and the Old City (known locally as Icherisheher). Baku is the world’s lowest-lying national capital city at 28 metres below sea level.
COP29 will be held at the city’s Baku Stadium.
Baku is four hours ahead of GMT and UTC. New Zealand and Samoa are nine hours ahead of Baku time.
Baku was given the hosting rights for this COP at the 2023 meeting. Each venue must be agreed upon by the parties.
Brazil will host COP30 from November, 10 to 21, 2025.
What happened at the last COP?
In 2023, COP28 was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and with almost 100,000 participants, it was the largest COP ever held.
Fossil fuels came under fire.
The final agreed text included a call for “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner… so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science.”
It also called for a tripling of renewable energy capacity globally by 2030, speeding up efforts to reduce coal use, and accelerating technologies such as carbon capture and storage that can clean up hard-to-decarbonize industries.
But the wording did not include explicit calls to ‘phase out’ or ‘phase down.’
John Silk, Head of the Delegation for the Marshall Islands, called it a “canoe with a weak and leaky hull” but one that “needed to be sailed” because there was no other option.
Henry Puna, then Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum, said COP28 did not deliver the outcome the region needed.
“COP28 was a disappointment because of our prioritising 1.5 degrees as our absolute priority with climate change.
“We will never give up; we have to continue pushing on that 1.5.”
More than 100 countries had lobbied hard for strong language in the COP28 agreement to “phase out” oil, gas and coal use, but came up against powerful opposition from the Saudi Arabia-led oil producer group OPEC, which argued that the world can slash emissions without shunning specific fuels.
What does COP mean for the Pacific?
The Pacific representatives often use COP as a platform to not only plead for environmental change but also for financial support to help them adapt.
Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Biman Prasad told a pre-COP meeting: “To be clear, the Pacific is the bedrock of the 1.5-degree target; the essence of our ability to overcome adversity and prosper into the future hangs in the balance until we can affirm this target can be achieved.”
The Pacific is seen to be on the frontline of climate change. Its countries are mostly collections of small islands, with coastal areas and infrastructure vulnerable to the elements. Due to its size, isolation and unique geographical, economic and cultural characteristics, the Pacific is particularly susceptible to oceanic and weather-related challenges].
Pacific people rely heavily on the sea for their livelihood – but it is that very ocean that is predicted to force relocation. Their average elevation is one to two metres above sea level.
The World Meteorological Organization State of the Climate in the South-West Pacific 2023 report, released in August this year, details how sea level rise in the region is above the global average.
The Pacific Community (SPC) Spokesperson, Niue’s Coral Pasisi, said reaching an agreement over the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance will be critical at COP29.
“So this is really a finance COP. We have to reach an agreement on the new promise,” she said.
“The previous promise is US$100 billion per annum made in Copenhagen 14 years ago now, in 2009; and the world has to agree this year on what that new quantified goal is going to be for climate finance.
“Every single activity that we need to bolster our resilience and transition as a region to a low carbon future needs to be funded by climate finance.”
Common terms you will hear at COP
- Greenhouse gas emissions or GHG. Gases that trap heat in the atmosphere are called greenhouse gases. They include carbon dioxide or CO2 – the US Environmental Protection Agency says CO2 enters the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil), solid waste, trees and other biological materials, and also as a result of certain chemical reactions (like cement production). Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere (or “sequestered”) when it is absorbed by plants as part of the biological carbon cycle. Other greenhouse gases include methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases.
- Just transition. Refers to the process of moving from fossil fuels to renewable fuels, in a way that is fair, equitable and not sudden or pulling the rug out from anyone.
- Loss and damage (fund). A call from smaller countries in particular to get money from larger countries to help them manage climate change impacts – saying they are facing consequences which outweigh their minor contributions to emissions.
- The Paris Agreement. An international climate treaty, which was adopted by 196 Parties at COP21 in Paris, France, in 2015. It came into force nearly a year later. Its overarching goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
Christina Persico is a Pacific Bulletin Editor at Radio New Zealand. The above report and pictures have been published under a Special Agreement with www.rnz.co.nz.
