A Visual History of COP

The first COP came on the heels of the 1992 establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The framework committed the global community to taking action against "dangerous human interference with the climate system."

COP 1, which aimed to galvanize international discussions on climate change, took place in Berlin in 1995, six years after the Berlin Wall fell and broke down Cold War-era divisions. 

Though the wall itself had fallen, the Earth Negotiations Bulletin noted that “delegates from 117 Parties and 53 observer States found that…the walls that divide the Parties to the Convention still remain[ed]” and impeded proceedings. Differing priorities between developed and developing countries — then called Annex 1 and Annex 2 countries — slowed negotiations to a snail’s pace. 

By the conference’s end, participating nations had agreed to the Berlin Mandate, which committed them to reconvene each year, reduce air pollution, and address climate change. Over the next two years, countries were mandated to create and submit national action plans to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and lay out future goals for further reductions. 

Nations of all sorts and sizes engaged in the agreement, though the commitments made were only binding to Annex 1 countries like those in the European Union, plus the U.S. and Australia.

Many feel that though COP 1 was “not overly impressive,” it was “the first step” in the right direction.

The widely anticipated COP 3 produced the first pivotal deal of the conference series: the Kyoto Protocol.  

This landmark agreement committed Annex 1 countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012, created an emissions trading system, and established a clean development mechanism to promote joint emissions reductions projects between developing and developed countries. Though it was adopted in 1997, the protocol wasn’t fully ratified until 2005. 

Still, reaching the agreement was far from easy. Every nation entered the negotiations with a different proposed amount of emissions cuts — none of which were within striking distance of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s science-backed recommendations. 

The initial draft of the protocol placed a higher burden on developed countries than on developing countries to address their emissions; after an objection from President George H.W. Bush, the U.S. officially opposed the protocol because neither India nor China would be subject to the same legally binding regulations despite their status as high polluters. 

Small compromises emerged, but the negotiations neared collapse. The Guardian reported that it caused “some members of the [EU] delegation who had not slept for more than 24 hours [to] burst into tears at the prospect of a total breakdown of the negotiations.” 

China, worsening the negotiations and angering the U.S., also successfully pushed to make greenhouse gas reductions voluntary for developing countries; ultimately, most legally agreed to slash emissions between 6 and 8% of 1990 levels. In return, the U.S. dug in its heels to lock in emissions trading, an unpopular program among the vast majority of other states. 

No one was happy, despite significant progress being made. The Guardian’s Paul Brown reported on the last day of the conference that the “patched-up deal does not bode well for an agreement supposed to usher in a brighter and cleaner millennium, and it was only achieved after a cynical trade-off between China and the U.S.…everyone knows that there is no chance of the U.S. ratifying the treaty unless these [details] are worked out.”

The U.S. eventually signed the Kyoto Protocol at COP 4, but never ratified the agreement.

COP 11 was the first COP held in North America, shortly after Hurricane Katrina caused $125 billion in damages during one of the most devastating hurricane seasons on record. 

The Montreal conference kicked off with an early win: putting the Kyoto Protocol into force. Though discussions around enforcement techniques weren’t always smooth sailing, the majority of the legally binding negotiations around Kyoto were passed by the end of the conference. The U.S. and Australia, having both pulled out of the protocol, sat out from the talks. 

Later, however, during discussions of other future climate negotiations beyond Kyoto, both parties rejoined the conversation. A new draft proposal was put forward, calling for international cooperation on addressing climate change and cutting emissions. 

When talks turned to new ways to curb emissions, the head of the U.S. delegation, Harlan Watson, walked out. It appeared that, in his view, the wording in the proposal had shifted toward drafting new policy — to which George W. Bush was opposed. 

Chaos ensued. 

David Adam reported that, in a baffling move, “Watson told the high-level meeting: 'If it walks like a duck  and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.” Logically, “U.S. green campaigners quickly bought all the plastic ducks they could find in surrounding shops and handed them out to delegates and the media."

Backlash from delegations around the globe and a rousing speech from the former President Bill Clinton eventually led the American delegation to sign a revised version of the proposal after making “trivial” changes. Internationally, the New York Times reported, the “walkout was widely seen as the capstone of two weeks of American efforts to prevent any fresh initiatives from being discussed.”

The revised proposal was eventually accepted by weary delegates.

The catastrophe in Copenhagen, as COP 15 was affectionately nicknamed by the Guardian’s Damian Carrington, began with a clash and ended in a night of “high drama and low politics.” 

COP 15 was much anticipated, as it was expected to be the most important conference since COP 3 in Kyoto 12 years earlier. It was universally regarded as a massive flop. From the starting gun, negotiations were tense between developed countries, who wanted a solely political agreement, and developing nations, who called for legally binding emissions reductions policies. 

A draft agreement — the “Danish text” — leaked on the second day. Created by the “circle of commitment,” a group of countries including the U.S., Denmark, and the United Kingdom, among others, the document would essentially siphon power from the United Nations into the hands of selected developed countries that would control future negotiations on climate change. 

Rather than calling for richer nations with higher emissions to enter into binding reductions agreements, the Danish text would effectively ditch the Kyoto protocol, transfer climate change finance to the World Bank, and make decarbonization cash flows to developing countries dependent on their emissions reductions actions. 

It would also prevent poor countries from emitting over 1.33 metric tons of carbon dioxide per person by 2050; in contrast, rich countries could emit 2.76 metric tons per capita. John Vidal reported that a senior diplomat described the text as “a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations.”

Clearly, the Danish text sowed resentment and distrust between developed and developing countries, a sentiment that spread like wildfire as the impasse in negotiations grew. The UNFCCC’s executive secretary, Yvo de Boer, tried to restart discussions and downplay the text as “an informal paper”, which was written and shared before the conference for “consultations;” his efforts were largely unsuccessful. 

A series of compromises and new policies ensued to try and break the stalemate, but more leaks amped up tensions. Small group discussions (like those between then-President Barack Obama, a coalition of developed states, and key developing nations) only further shattered trust between many countries, as there remained little transparency in the negotiation process

After dragging line-by-line discussions, 30 world leaders joined a private emergency meeting to try to save the deal on the eve of the last day of the conference. Two key players did not attend: China, whose Premier Wen Jiabao boycotted the talks, and India, whose prime minister’s plane “mysteriously develop[ed] a problem that delayed his arrival,” according to reporters John Vidal and Jonathan Watts.

The disarray only worsened as countries lobbed emissions targets back and forth like grenades, with the fractures shattering coalitions into smaller and smaller negotiations. Draft upon draft of slightly altered deals were leaked within minutes, having been strategically placed around the conference site, put online, or given to journalists. 

The conference bordered on meltdown. 

Around midnight on Friday, a two-and-a-half page draft emerged from discussions between the U.S. and the U.K. Everyone lost: The deal was weakly worded, vague in its goals, and lacked input from most conference attendees. Once again, talks turned heated despite a one-hour time limit imposed on the discussion of the draft. 

A last-second adjournment resulted in an 11th-hour compromise that “noted” the final accord rather than accepting or rejecting it. COP 15 remains the leakiest international conference in history, and the so-called “Brokenhagen” conference is widely seen as the least successful COP.

Hopes were high and delegations were cautiously optimistic headed into the long-awaited COP 21 in Paris, despite occurring only a few weeks after deadly terrorist attacks in the city. Under the Durban platform laid out four years prior, nations were required to create a legally binding emissions reduction plan and develop nationally determined contributions (NDCs) , which are plans for each country that outline specific emissions reductions goals for the coming years. 

President Obama spoke at the start of COP 21, noting that “one of the enemies we will be fighting at this conference is cynicism — the notion that we can’t do anything about climate change.”

Still, relationships were strained, even after a joint statement between the U.S. and China that set new emissions targets a year earlier.

The French hosts rolled out a series of “informal informals,” which were small ad hoc groups where negotiators could work through hurdles outside of larger sessions and prevent talks from getting bogged down in the minutiae of the agreement’s phrasing. Confessionals also let delegates anonymously air their grievances to French negotiators who would impartially advocate for their positions. 

Fears of a repeat of Copenhagen led to an imposed interim deadline for a draft agreement by the conference’s midpoint. This was critical; by the end of the first Saturday, the draft was narrowed down to 21 pages compared to the “300-page text and pervasive sense of despair” that The Guardian reported delegates dealt with at COP 15. 

Disagreements over loss and damages (or the consequences of climate change that can’t be addressed through mitigation or adaptation), differentiation between the responsibilities of developed and developing countries, and proposed NDCs bred discord. 

Still, journalist Fiona Harvey reported, a consensus emerged after tense negotiations, as “none of the major countries wanted to be seen as wrecking a deal that had come so close” and “all could agree that they wanted an agreement and all made compromises.” The U.S. agreed to include loss and damages, China and India accepted a target to cap emissions at 1.5°C of warming, and the EU cut back its emissions targets.

A misplaced comma, a contentious verb, and mistranslation of a few words led to a nearly two-hour delay leading up to the draft’s acceptance. Then, it was over. 

With the strike of a special, leaf-shaped gavel, the Paris Agreement was adopted. 

“This universal and ambitious agreement sends a clear signal to governments, businesses, and investors everywhere,” former Vice President Al Gore said in a statement. “The transformation of our global economy from one fuelled by dirty energy to one fuelled by sustainable economic growth is now firmly and inevitably underway.” 

The deal wasn’t perfect, but the room was jubilant. When the agreement later came into force on November 4, 2016, 189 countries ratified the agreement.

When COVID-19 shut down the world, even COP couldn’t be salvaged. 

The one-year delay pushed COP 26 to autumn 2021. The already highly anticipated conference was made that much more tantalizing by the longer wait and stronger desires for connection that grew from the global pandemic. Many consider the extra preparation time to be a key factor in COP 26’s success, despite the hypocrisy baked into the diplomatic efforts of COP president Alok Sharma, who flew 200,000 miles in seven months to discuss climate change with leaders around the world. 

His goal? Find a way to close the gap between the emissions cuts scientifically necessary to avoid global warming of more than 1.5 C and countries’ reduction targets, which were nowhere near enough to get there. 

Methane emissions goals nabbed an early win, with over 100 countries committing to slash their emissions of the especially potent greenhouse gas by 30% by the end of the decade. The pledge was not legally binding, though hopes for its impact remain high three years on. And over 30 countries signed an agreement to stop extending public finance to fossil fuel production and instead pour it into clean energy.

Coal reduction was both a primary focus of COP 26 and Sharma’s personal Holy Grail. The Glasgow conference was the first time coal took the spotlight in negotiations. Sharma’s draft proposal was straightforward, as it simply called “upon Parties to accelerate the phasing-out of coal and subsidies of fossil fuels.”

The agreement was expected to pass with little issue. However, in the final hours of the conference, a potentially deal-shattering announcement was made: The language was too binding for China and India, two of the world’s biggest emitters and coal burners. As all final COP texts need consensus, the disagreement from China and India could sink the whole deal. 

At issue was the phrase “phasing-out,” which China and India saw as too harsh. Beijing called for a “phase down” of coal, with India demanding that the pact only apply to “inefficient” coal. 

An emergency meeting between India, China, the U.S., and the EU convened in the conference’s 11th hour. A heated discussion made little difference; the two countries remained firm: “a phaseout was unacceptable, but a phase-down, implying a longer-term future for some coal at least, was the most they would sign up to.” In fears of unraveling the entire agreement, negotiators reluctantly agreed to most of China and India’s terms despite near-universal opposition. 

Politico reported that, when the changes were announced, the mood of the meeting plummeted from elation to bitterness. But “after two weeks of discussions and hundreds of other points of decision potentially to be reopened if they fought back, the world collectively swallowed the message from the four powers.”

A teary Sharma apologized for how the process ended, even though he recognized that the concessions were necessary to ensure some form of the text was protected.

Mere weeks after the re-election of Donald Trump to the White House, the former and incoming president’s shadow loomed over COP 29, where the top 13 polluters declined to send their executive teams to this year’s conference. Country leaders from around the world — including Germany, Russia, China, India, and Australia, among others — also opted to skip the conference; COP 29 drew an estimated 40,000 attendees, or half of those who attended the previous year’s COP 28 in Dubai. 

Even so, the first day of negotiations kicked off with a bang — after more than 25 years of discussions, delegations agreed upon rules and regulations for a global carbon market within hours of the conference’s kickoff.

That hopeful spirit didn’t last. Instead, class divides took center stage. 

Dubbed the “Finance COP,” COP29 negotiations grew increasingly hostile as the conference unfolded. The primary issue at hand revolved around how much money developed countries should devote towards helping developing countries reduce their emissions and adapt to climate change. The current commitment, which is set to expire in 2025, mandates that wealthier nations must provide $100 billion per year in (mostly) public finance to poorer countries. 

Developing countries — based on recommendations from scientists and economists that were presented at the conference — stated that, together, they need approximately $2.4 trillion in annual funding from 2030 to decrease fossil fuel usage and build resiliency against climate change. A group of more than 80 countries brought a suggestion of $1.3 trillion per year to the negotiating table. Many developed nations saw any commitment over the $100 billion they’d already been providing as a handout, particularly as nations like China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates still wouldn’t help support developing countries.

Talks stalled as tensions grew and rumors of $200 billion or $250 billion proposals spread. The conference continued into overtime. 

Delegates from small island developing states and many of the other most vulnerable nations walked out of negotiations hours after the conference was supposed to end and dozens of delegations were set to fly back to their countries. For many, this brought to mind the very real possibility that Baku could end like Copenhagen had 15 years earlier: in complete and utter collapse. 

Eventually, however, delegations returned with a bitter resolve to land an agreement, regardless of how disappointing it was, due to reluctance to continue delaying climate finance negotiations another year.

A small group of selected negotiators sequestered themselves in a meeting room for two and a half hours to air grievances and hash out details. They returned victorious — a draft framework was finally ready, even if no one was happy with it. 

The final deal promises $300 billion in annual support to aid developing countries address climate change, though it still falls short of the needed $1.3 trillion. Developing countries spoke out against the deal, calling it “stage-managed” and “a travesty of justice” that doesn’t provide enough funds to keep 1.5°C within reach. Even so, the agreement is the largest finance deal in COP’s 30-year history. 

Delegations left COP 29 with a bitter taste in the mouth and skepticism leading up to COP 30 in Brazil. Even so, the conference proved that multilateralism still plays a valuable role in international climate action, particularly in a global environment shadowed by war, inflation, and populism. 

“I don’t think there is any party who would say they got all that they wanted here, and yet I do think it is an important step forward in the end for all of us,” said Wopke Hoekstra, the European Union’s climate chief, in a statement to The Guardian. “It was an opportunity to show unity and come together in truly very complicated geopolitical times.”