From the Desk of GTEC – November 2, 2026 – Arden Henley
What Is COP?
COP stands for Conference of the Parties — the supreme decision-making body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the international treaty that governs the world’s collective response to climate change. The UNFCCC was adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and entered into force in 1994. The 198 countries that have ratified it are the “Parties” who meet at COP each year.
COP convenes annually, usually in November, rotating between the UN’s five regional groups. Each session is hosted by a country that assumes the COP Presidency, setting the political tone and driving negotiations. The conference typically runs two weeks and draws tens of thousands of participants: government negotiators, heads of state, scientists, civil society organizations, Indigenous Peoples’ representatives, journalists, and private sector observers.
Formally, COP makes decisions by consensus — every Party must agree. In practice this produces slow, carefully hedged language, with the most contested paragraphs often resolved in all-night sessions at the end. COP decisions are not legally binding in the way domestic law is, but they carry significant political weight. Countries that make commitments under the UNFCCC face real reputational and diplomatic consequences if they walk away from them.
A Brief History
COP1 — Berlin, 1995. The first COP established the Berlin Mandate, acknowledging that existing commitments were insufficient and calling for negotiation of binding targets for developed nations.
COP3 — Kyoto, 1997. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted, the first binding international agreement requiring developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The US Senate signalled it would not ratify; Canada withdrew in 2011. Kyoto nonetheless established the architecture — binding targets, national inventories, flexibility mechanisms — that all subsequent agreements build on.
COP13 — Bali, 2007. The Bali Road Map set a two-year timeline for a new global agreement, launching the negotiations that would eventually produce Paris.
COP15 — Copenhagen, 2009. Widely seen as a near-catastrophic failure. World leaders arrived expecting a binding successor to Kyoto and left with only a non-binding political accord. The collapse of Copenhagen negotiations was a formative moment for climate diplomacy: it showed the limits of top-down target-setting and pushed subsequent COPs toward the voluntary pledge-and-review model.
COP17 — Durban, 2011. Agreement to negotiate a new treaty applicable to all countries — not just developed nations — by 2015. A turning point toward the universality that defines Paris.
COP21 — Paris, 2015. The Paris Agreement was adopted by 196 Parties. For the first time, all countries committed to limit warming, submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and ratchet up ambition over time. Its goal: hold warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, pursuing 1.5°C. Paris is widely regarded as the most significant multilateral climate agreement ever reached.
COP26 — Glasgow, 2021. The Glasgow Climate Pact called on countries to phase down (not out) coal and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Countries were asked to return by 2022 with strengthened NDCs. The 1.5°C goal was explicitly reaffirmed after a decade of slippage.
COP27 — Sharm el-Sheikh, 2022. Agreed to establish a Loss and Damage fund to compensate vulnerable nations for climate harms they did not cause — a breakthrough after thirty years of developed-country resistance.
COP28 — Dubai, 2023. The first Global Stock take found the world far off track for Paris goals. Countries agreed to “transition away from fossil fuels” — the first-time fossil fuels were named in a COP decision — and to triple renewable capacity by 2030.
COP29 — Baku, 2024. The New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance was agreed: $300 billion per year from developed to developing countries by 2035, falling short of the $1.3 trillion developing nations sought.
COP30 — Belém, 2025. Held in the Amazon, COP30 was framed as the moment countries would submit new, more ambitious NDCs for 2035. Results were mixed: some major emitters strengthened targets while others stalled.
Accomplishments
The COP process has produced real achievements that would not have happened without it.
Universal participation. For the first time in history, every nation on Earth has committed to addressing climate change under a common legal framework. The UNFCCC’s near-universal ratification and the Paris Agreement’s 196 signatories represent an extraordinary feat of multilateral diplomacy.
The Paris Agreement. Whatever its limitations, Paris was a genuine breakthrough: it locked in a temperature goal, created a self-reinforcing ratchet mechanism through regular NDC updates, and established transparency and accountability rules that apply equally to developed and developing nations.
Loss and Damage. The creation of the Loss and Damage fund at COP27 was a thirty-year fight by Small Island States and vulnerable nations. Its existence is a recognition that climate injustice is real and that those who caused the crisis have obligations to those who suffer its worst effects.
Fossil fuel language. The Dubai agreement to “transition away from fossil fuels” was the first time a COP decision used that phrase. It arrived thirty years late, but it is now in the formal record.
Norm-setting and pressure. Even when COP decisions lack enforcement, they shape expectations. Governments, investors, and corporations use COP commitments as reference points. The process has helped make inaction politically costly in ways it was not in 1992.
Scientific integration. COP’s close relationship with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has kept the science of warming at the centre of international negotiations across three decades of evolving evidence.
Limitations and Criticisms
COP’s critics — including many of the scientists and advocates who attend it — point to a substantial gap between what the process produces and what the climate requires.
The emissions gap. After thirty years of COP meetings, global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising. The pledges made under Paris, even if fully implemented, currently track toward roughly 2.5°C of warming — well above the 1.5°C goal. COP has changed the conversation but not yet changed the trajectory.
Consensus as a veto. Because COP operates by consensus, a single country or bloc can block, dilute, or delay any decision. Oil-producing nations have used this power systematically. The result is language like “phase down” rather than “phase out,” and commitments calibrated to the slowest mover.
Voluntary and unenforceable. NDCs are nationally determined — countries set their own targets — and there is no penalty for missing them. The Paris Agreement’s ratchet mechanism depends entirely on political will.
Finance promises repeatedly broken. Developed nations pledged $100 billion a year in climate finance to developing nations by 2020. That goal was not met until 2022, two years late, and much of what was counted was loans rather than grants. The COP29 goal of $300 billion by 2035 is widely seen as inadequate.
Access and equity. COP has grown into a massive event dominated by well-resourced delegations, corporate lobbyists, and Northern NGOs. Smaller, more vulnerable nations — those with the most at stake — often lack the negotiating capacity to shape outcomes. Fossil fuel industry representatives have outnumbered delegates from many vulnerable countries.
Incremental ambition. The COP process tends to protect existing commitments rather than accelerate them. Consensus culture rewards caution. Transformative decisions — when they happen — usually require years of groundwork and a favourable political moment that may not recur.
Implementation gap. Even agreed decisions frequently go unimplemented. The gap between COP decisions and domestic policy action remains wide in most countries, including Canada.
COP31 — What to Expect from Antalya
COP31 runs 9–20 November 2026 in Antalya, Turkey. It carries an unusual co-presidency arrangement: Turkey is the logistical host and leads the Action Agenda (the non-negotiating track of side events, partnerships, and voluntary commitments), while Australia holds the formal COP Presidency and presides over the negotiations.
The central challenge: trust and finance. Analysis heading into COP31 identifies trust between developed and developing nations as at a historic low. The failure to deliver adequate climate finance — accessible, concessional, and predictable — is the single largest obstacle to more ambitious global action. Expect finance to dominate the formal negotiations.
NDCs and the Global Stock take. Countries were required to submit new, more ambitious NDCs before Belém. COP31 will assess whether the aggregate commitments add up to what the Paris goals require. Early signs suggest the gap remains large.
The Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). Reaching agreement on a measurable global adaptation goal — how much adaptation is enough, and how it will be financed — is an ongoing negotiation that COP31 is expected to advance.
Article 6 carbon markets. The rules for international carbon markets were finalized at COP29. COP31 will see the first real-world implementation questions: which projects qualify, how integrity is verified, and how revenues flow to host countries.
Just Transition. The COP28 call to triple renewables and double efficiency by 2030 raised hard questions about who pays for the transition in fossil-fuel-dependent economies. COP31 is expected to continue work on just transition frameworks, including for coal-dependent communities.
Host country context. Turkey ratified the Paris Agreement only in 2021 and has been slow to submit ambitious NDCs. Civil society groups have raised concerns about press and NGO access given Turkey’s political environment. The Australia-Turkey co-presidency is an attempt to ensure negotiating credibility while Turkey manages logistics.
GTEC’s angle. As a community-focused climate organization, GTEC is particularly interested in the Local Climate Action Summit (running alongside COP), finance mechanisms for neighbourhood-scale adaptation, and how cities and communities are being positioned within the formal UNFCCC process.