COP29 is literally around the corner. It starts on Monday 11 November.

After a disastrous election outcome in the US, now more than ever before,

global leaders must galvanise into action.

Ahead of the events, let’s look at the history and achievements of COP in more detail…

📜COP history

-1992: The Earth Summit (officially known as The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development), held in Rio, marked the 20th anniversary of the first ever Human Environment Conference (Sweden 1972)

-Its conclusion? That sustainable development was an achievable goal

-The Earth Summit is where COP became official; the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

-1995: The first COP conference was held in Germany

👉What does COP stand for?

The COP acronym comes from: Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC. The actual event is also called The United Nations Climate Change Conference 😅

👉What happens at COP?

-Nations submit their emission inventories of the past year, so progress can be measured

-It aims to have global commitment to climate change – through stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations

-COP encourages and facilitates global climate change negotiations

👉Most historic COP

-COP21 hosted in Paris in 2015, where The Paris Agreement came about

-What? A legally binding treaty on climate change that was adopted by 196 parties

-Which means? The Agreement urges governments to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels (baseline used: 1850-1900)

-When? By the end of the century. This means greenhouse gases should start to drop by 2025 (!)

-But countries are failing to stay on track

⚠️COP29 – next week

-COP29 will be hosted by Azerbaijan

-Warning message from climate report:

The report looked at climate plans and found that “current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy” (UNFCC)

⚠️COP29 focus

-Finance – scale up climate finance; to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to help the most affected communities from the worsening impact of climate change

-Countries will present their climate action plans. Final plans are due early 2025

Happy Friday, and let this be a COP of positives!

And while you are here, have a look at my services to see how I can help you on your eco journey!

(Sources: UNFCC, UN, The Ecologist, Amnesty International, Acciona)