What is the COP all about?

In 1992, in the heat and air conditioning of Rio de Janeiro, the head of states got together and adopted the the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This was the first attempt by the United Nations to start dealing with the issue of man-made climate change on an international level and it went into force in 1994.

Their stated objective was « the stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at the level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system ».

Ever since, all 195 parties of the Convention have held an annual summit, called the Conference of the Parties (COP), with the aim of achieving this objective.

This year's COP21 is therefore the 21st summit that will be held since the creation of the UNFCCC and since the realisation that governments should work together to do something about our planet’s ill health.

Why is it taking so long? 
As we all know, it is not logic or the care for people and nature that rule these conferences. Powerful and financial interests dominate the ongoing negotiations, with small stakeholders often unheard. This is a brief summary of some of the COPs.

  • 1995: COP1 in Berlin, Germany: The First Conference of the Parties to be held under the UNFCCC. In a decision known as the Berlin Mandate, they agreed to establish a process to negotiate strengthened commitments for developed countries in order to meet the Convention’s objective.

  • 1997: COP3 in Kyoto, Japan: 193 countries signed the world’s first binding agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, to cut global emissions. The goal was to reduce global emissions by 5,2 % on 1990 levels by 2012. But this treaty was ratified only 8 years later. Overall, the Protocol was a failure, since many rich countries, such as Canada or the USA that made up most of global emissions refused to ratify it. The Protocol also established legally binding mitigation commitments only for industrialised countries under the Principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibility. This specifies that all states are responsible for global warming but that western countries are historically more responsible. Important polluters such as China or India were not asked to cut their emissions.

  • 2009: COP15 in Copenhagen, Denmark: This was supposed to be a turning point for the combat against climate change. Despite high expectations, the negotiations ended up being another failure to reach a new international binding agreement and find a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, as its expiration date was 2012. Two outcomes emerged from COP15. There was a consensus on the necessity to limit global warming to 2°C, and the parties agreed to create a common international climate fund to financially assist countries from the global South in implementing mitigation as well as adaptation measures.

  • 2010: COP16 in Cancun, Mexico: The mitigation objective of 2°C and the Climate Fund discussed in Copenhagen were enshrined at COP16.

  • 2012: COP18 in Doha, Qatar: Pending a final agreement, it was decided to extend the Kyoto Protocol to 2020. A new global emission reduction target was set to 18 % between 2013 and 2020 on 1990 levels. Many industrialised countries did not sign this second period of the Kyoto Protocol such as the USA, Canada, Japan and Russia. As a result, only 15 % of global emissions were taking into account by the treaty!

  • 2013: COP19 in Warsaw, Poland: The countries agreed on a roadmap to COP21 that will be held in Paris in 2015. The Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage was created to “address loss and damage associated with impacts of climate change”.


  • 2014:  COP20 in Lima, Peru: A first draft of a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol was finalised for the next negotiations to come in Paris.  Each industrialised country will have to submit its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), that is, its mitigation objectives, by the first trimester of 2015. Other countries (“developing countries”) may submit their pledges up until October 2015. Moreover, all parties will have to provide some objectives in terms of adaptation to climate change.

What's their plan for Paris?
Once again, the parties of the UN convention will meet for the 21st COP, from November 30th to December 12th. The idea is to discuss a new climate deal and 20 000 people are expected, which includes politicians, delegates, observers, etc. This upcoming meeting will be one of the largest international conferences held on climate change ever.

Many obstacles are looming ahead of COP21. First of all, only few countries have submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) so far. Some scientific groups, such as the Climate Action Tracker, have already assessed the first climate pledges and their conclusions show that they are not enough to stay within the 2°C limit. Other observers assert that the submission calendar will give too little time to be able to discuss a new treaty at the Conference of Paris. Hence the next COP, which will be held in Marrakesh, will be needed if the Parties will want to reach a genuine agreement.

What’s more, several crucial meetings are taking place this year such as in Geneva in February, and in Bonn in October where the parties of the Convention need to simplify the negotiation text that came out of COP20 in Lima, and that will be presented and signed in Paris. But the draft of the treaty has swollen from 37 to 86 pages. Many legal specialists also fear that the form of the agreement remains an important issue that has not been sorted out yet.

Finally, the Green Climate Fund, which was supposed to be the cornerstone of climate finance efforts is failing to reach its goal of $100 billion a year by 2020.

Hence, the world governments have been trying to come to a legally binding agreement for more than twenty years now! Despite the importance and the gravity of the issue, they have indeed failed to do so, and seem not to be willing to stand up for our planet and for human societies.  As we have seen above, many difficulties must be overcome in order to come to an effective and fair agreement in order to contain global warming to 2°C within the UNFCCC process.