The UN's climate summits may be flawed, but without them, global cooperation on climate might never have taken root. Thirty years on, COP remains the world's only forum for confronting a shared climate future.
In 1995, at the close of the first Conferences of the Parties (COP) climate conference in Berlin, the seasoned American diplomat Richard Benedick was cautiously optimistic that unstoppable momentum had been achieved. Seven years earlier, Benedick, who died last year, had learned what could be accomplished with global cooperation as the US's chief negotiator on the Montreal Protocol, which was vital in protecting the ozone layer from manmade chemicals.
"There may be some flabby language, but by accepting this document the whole world is locked into a political process which cannot be backed away from", he said of the Berlin Mandate, which called on governments to establish legally-binding targets and timetables for reducing emissions. "There is no pulling out by anyone; no one can turn their back on a process like this and expect to survive in the world of international diplomacy."
Thirty years later, during COP30 in Belém, Brazil, delegates may pause for a moment to consider how these gatherings have evolved, shaped, as they have been, by successes, failures, geopolitical shifts, and the increasingly urgent realities of climate change.
Was Benedick right in 1995 to predict that there would be no going back?
The COP's fundamental purpose was conceived in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, which recognised the need for a coordinated response to climate change. It established the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), with the COP as its highest decision-making body, tasked with reviewing progress, negotiating commitments, and progressively strengthening global climate action.
While there was clearly an appetite for collaboration after the first conference in Berlin, the climate sceptic lobby was still powerful in the mid-1990s, and representatives of the fossil fuels industry and the major petrostates were out in force, intent on stymieing early progress.
Hope that science would win got a lift at COP 3 in Japan, when the 1997 Kyoto Protocol emerged as the first international treaty to set legally binding greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets for developed countries, including 37 nations and the European Community.
The goal of Kyoto was to slow climate change by requiring signatories to cut emissions, with an average decrease of 5.2 % below 1990 levels during the initial commitment period (2008-2012), followed by a second commitment period extending to 2020. But the harsh realities of climate negotiations at the highest level would ultimately doom the protocol, not least when the USA refused to ratify it.
"Additional factors that undermined its effectiveness included weak enforcement mechanisms, reliance on voluntary commitments from certain nations, and a framework that emphasised short-term measures rather than fostering long-term, sustainable solutions to climate change", says Ursula Finsterwald, Head of Group Sustainability Management at LGT Private Banking.
The early conferences were focussed on establishing foundational agreements, saving the details of implementation for later years. Many came and went without producing much more than hot air.
Another milestone of sorts came in Copenhagen in 2009 when, thanks in large part to lobbying by the Alliance of Small Island States, delegates agreed to include the 2° C warming limit and reference to the 1.5° C goal, with a pledge to revisit the lower target by 2015 if the science backed it up.
Fast forward six years and that COP, in Paris in 2015, proved to be momentous when it produced the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty that committed the world to limiting global temperature rises to below 2° C, and preferably below 1.5° C. The Agreement's five-year cycle also encouraged countries to continually strengthen their efforts, with national climate action plans known as NDCs being submitted since 2020 to drive that progress.
Evidence of the ongoing resistance to meaningful action arrived again at COP 26 in Glasgow, in 2021, when a landmark commitment to "phase down" the use of coal was weakened from "phase out" late in negotiations. "Nevertheless, the signal was significant", Finsterwald says.
Further progress at COP 27 in Sharm El Sheikh in 2022 included the historic agreement to establish a "loss and damage" fund to assist vulnerable countries in dealing with the impacts of climate change.
When viewed as a whole, evidence of the COPs success or failure arguably came weeks before the latest meeting in Brazil when António Guterres, the secretary general of the UN, warned that it was now "inevitable" that nations collectively will overshoot the 1.5° C target, with "devastating consequences" for the world.
He said the urgency of the COPs' founding mission had never been greater than in Brazil: "It is absolutely indispensable to change course in order to make sure that the overshoot is as short as possible and as low in intensity as possible to avoid tipping points like the Amazon."
Critics have called for reforms to COP to bring about more efficient procedures, increased financial support for developing countries, and adjustments to the negotiation structure in a way that permits faster, large-scale progress towards climate goals. "Climate finance remains a major issue, with unmet funding promises and unclear delivery mechanisms undermining trust", adds Finsterwald. "Fossil fuel phase-out lacks clear action; implementation and accountability are weak with few consequences for non-compliance."
But the fact remains that, however imperfect it remains after three faltering decades, COP is the only international platform where these conversations and negotiations can take place. That role is more vital than ever in an age of deglobalisation; nowhere else will nations be compelled to translate the Paris Agreement into real-world progress.
Finsterwald summarises: "UN Climate Conferences remain central to international climate cooperation, their significance depends on whether nations can move beyond talk to deliver lasting and impactful change."
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