Improving future climate meetings

Criticisms of climate policymaking and the Conference of the Parties (COP) process are mounting. In October 2024, Papua New Guinea’s foreign minister announced that the COP meetings were a “total waste of time” and that his government would not be attending¹. In an open letter, a list of high-profile signatories including former United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres called for reforms to the whole framework for UN climate negotiations, with one author stating that “COP is not fit for purpose” and needs foundational reform².

The COP29 meeting did little to allay these concerns. Some civil society groups boycotted the meeting due to Azerbaijan’s ties to the fossil fuel industry. The talks nearly collapsed, with the Alliance of Small Island States walking out of negotiations for the first time in the 29-year history, citing a “deplorable lack of substance”³. The election of Donald Trump cast a shadow on any hope of future US leadership. And after a frustrating and chaotic two weeks in Baku, Azerbaijan, a representative of the Climate Action Network declared the meeting the “worst COP in recent memory” (https://x.com/gcdcj/status/1859908413767209281).