UN climate chief Simon Stiell has said he hopes to see fewer people attend the annual COP climate negotiations after participants at COP28 in Dubai last December hit a record high of nearly 84,000.
Stiell said this month that he personally “would certainly like to see future COPs reduce in size”, telling an audience at London’s Chatham House think-tank that “bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better”.
In Dubai, where the 2023 summit was held from November 30 to December 13, the Expo City site was so large that important delegates were ferried around on golf buggies while electric scooters were available to get around the public area, known as the Green Zone.
“Size does not necessarily translate to the quality of outcomes,” Stiell said in London, noting that the UN climate change secretariat (UNFCCC) is discussing the issue with the hosts of COP29 in Azerbaijan this year and COP30 next year in Brazil.
Last week, Climate Home reporters visited the COP29 host city of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan – on a tour sponsored by the COP29 presidency – and also the location of COP30, the Brazilian Amazon city of Belém, to see how preparations are going for the November 2024 and 2025 gatherings.
Azerbaijan’s government is expecting just 40,000 people to come to the Baku Olympic Stadium for the talks this year, while Belém’s remoteness, congested roads and lack of hotels are likely to substantially limit how many people can attend the “Amazon COP”.
The number of people attending COPs has shot up in recent years. Close to 40,000 people went to COP26 in Glasgow, around 50,000 were in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for COP27 and nearly 84,000 headed to Dubai last year. But most of the 28 COPs held since 1995 have been attended by fewer than 10,000 people.
Just over half of last year’s participants belonged to government delegations, with most of the rest comprising staff working at the conference or activists from non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
In practice, the boundaries of these categories are blurred though, as government delegations often include business representatives, NGO employees, journalists and others.
Baku’s Olympic Stadium
The government of Azerbaijan will host COP29 in the country’s Caspian seaside capital, Baku. A member of the organising committee told Climate Home they are expecting around 40,000 people.
The government has not had much time to prepare, as it was only tasked with the presidency last November at COP28 after Eastern Europe’s geopolitical divisions delayed the decision on which country would host the summit.
But it already has a venue: the Olympic Stadium on the outskirts of Baku. According to state media, COP29 chief operations officer Narmin Jarchalova said temporary structures will be built around the stadium to accommodate the negotiations and side events. These are likely to be in car-park areas.
The city is used to hosting major events. Ten thousand come each year for Formula One’s Baku Grand Prix and the 69,870-capacity Olympic Stadium has hosted the 2015 European Games, big concerts, the 2019 Europa League football final and Euro 2020 matches, although no Olympic Games despite the name.
Climate Home visited the area in April while in Baku, as part of a press trip organised by the COP29 presidency team. The stadium is connected to the city centre, where most hotels are located, by a Soviet-era metro railway with a one-way journey taking around 45 minutes.
A car journey should take about half of that, 20 minutes, but heavy traffic gridlocked the main roads in and out of Baku when Climate Home visited.
The Baku Olympic Stadium (Photo: Matteo Civillini)
Climate Home asked the COP29 team for information on how the temporary COP facilities will be built, powered and heated sustainably during the summit, but had received no response at the time of publication.
In February, Climate Home revealed that the government had told hotels in Baku not to sell rooms for COP29’s November 11-22 dates until further notice.
In London this month, UN climate chief Stiell said, with regard to the number of participants, that “we have an opportunity with Azerbaijan and we’re engaging with them”. He did not give further details.
COPs usually feature one big climate demonstration on the middle Saturday of the two-week talks. The UNFCCC is talking to the COP29 team about how this will be enabled.
Protesters march on the middle Saturday of COP26 in Glasgow, UK, in 2021 (Photos: Insure Our Future)
In a meeting at the energy ministry last week, COP29 CEO and deputy energy minister Elnur Soltanov told journalists, including Climate Home, that these discussions were “fruitful”.
Human rights groups like Freedom House say Azerbaijan does not respect freedom of assembly. Police violently arrested opposition protesters in 2019.
Soltanov was asked if the climate march will be allowed to take place in the city, which is governed by Azerbaijan’s police force, or only in the COP29 venue, which is under the jurisdiction of UN security guards.
He replied that “this is too specific a question” but said that protest is “part and parcel of people expressing their views, their anger, their desperation”.
Brazil’s Amazon COP
On Belém, which is in northern Brazil near the Amazon rainforest, Stiell said he was “actively discussing with the Brazilians how we can reduce the size of the COP so that the logistics of it can be supported at that hosted destination”.
Last June, Brazilian climate ministry official André Corrêa Lago told local media he was expecting 40,000-50,000 people. But there are concerns that the city will struggle to cope with those numbers.
Belém is not a major tourist destination and has less than 6,000 hotel rooms. Even at last year’s Amazon Summit – a smaller event than a COP – participants reported difficulty finding rooms and rates soared.
Construction workers are currently turning a 1.6 km-long disused airport runway into the Parque de Cidade (City Park), which will be the size of about 70 football pitches. The park and its new buildings will be the main COP30 venue.
The government of Pará State says it is almost one-third finished. The federal government, meanwhile, is reportedly considering hosting part of COP30 in bigger cities like Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro.
A spokesperson for the federal government told Climate Home that “all possibilities to enable the reception of delegations and visitors are being evaluated”.
As well as the park and its new buildings, some of the conference will be held in an existing conference centre on the park’s southern tip called The Hangar – which hosted last year’s Amazon Summit.
The Hangar convention centre (Photo: Alice Martins Morais)
For COP30 delegates though, finding a hotel room and getting to the venue are likely to be challenging.
A spokesperson for the COP30 organising committee said last week that while 84,000 people went to COP28, the peak daily attendance was just 41,000 at the beginning of the conference when heads of state made their speeches.
An Ibis hotel near the COP30 site (Photo: Alice Martins Morais)
The spokesperson told Climate Home the organisers are looking at bringing in cruise ships for COP participants to sleep on, refurbishing schools to serve as hostels and encouraging people to rent out their rooms on Airbnb.
To promote the “modernisation” of the city’s existing hotel rooms, the government has given hotel operators tax exemptions on purchases for new equipment like minibars, televisions and air-conditioning.
The city’s airport, which the government aims to improve before COP30, has few regular international connections and is over three hours by plane from Brazil’s major hubs like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
There are no trains to Belém and getting the bus from Rio or Sao Paulo can take more than two days.
The Belém Bus Rapid Transit system is scheduled to be completed by COP30 (Photo: Alice Martins Morais)
Even inside the city, transport is challenging. The roads are congested, particularly in the centre where most of the hotels are, during rush-hour and when it rains.
The authorities have tried to solve the problem by widening roads and building dedicated bus lanes for a Bus Rapid Transit system.
While these are being constructed, they have made traffic worse – but the body in charge told Climate Home work is progressing according to schedule and should be completed by the second half of 2024 – well before the UN climate summit the following year.
“The new fleet will reinforce the capital’s transport system for COP30,” said a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transport Management Centre, adding that 40 of the 265 new air-conditioned buses will be electric.
Argentinian scientists condemn budget cuts ahead of university protest
Nonetheless, the remoteness of the location is likely to translate into a bigger carbon footprint for delegates travelling from overseas.
While COPs have a sizable carbon footprint, researchers investigating misinformation have found this is often exaggerated on social and traditional media by those trying to undermine climate action.
Examples include pictures of private jets with captions falsely associating them with COP or of biofuel generators with captions erroneously claiming they are diesel.
Questioned about COPs’ carbon footprint by an audience member at London’s Chatham House, UN climate head Stiell replied that “at every COP, we get the reports – how many private planes [and] the CO2 footprint for hosting those COPs”.
But, he added, “taking a very pragmatic view, we need the right people around the table in order for this process to work and there will be a cost to that. How you ensure that those that are present are the ones necessary to contribute positively to the process is also important.”
(Reporting by Matteo Civillini in Baku, Alice Martins Morais in Belém and Joe Lo in London; videos by Fanis Kollias; editing by Joe Lo and Megan Rowling)
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This is a republication of November’s edition of The Climate Agenda – a subscriber-only newsletter designed to keep you informed of the key events, negotiations and announcements happening every month. If you want to receive The Climate Agenda straight to your inbox at the start of each month, sign up as a subscriber today.
COP31 begins in one week, and we’ll have five specialist reporters on the ground in Antalya, Türkiye, bringing you every development as it happens. From the negotiations to leaders’ speeches and side events, we’ll be there to dissect what it all means for international climate policy on electrification, just transition, adaptation finance and much more.
Here’s what you need to know for November, why it matters and what to expect.
US midterm elections
Tuesday 3 November – United States
The geopolitical highlight for the first week of November is the US midterm elections, which will show whether American voters are in any mood to forgive President Donald Trump for failing to bring down the cost of living. From an energy perspective, his pro-oil and gas stance hasn’t led to cheaper prices for consumers, pushed up by the US-instigated Iran conflict. And his diesel deal with Russia won’t yet have made a difference at the pump.
The key issue for climate and energy policy is whether the Republicans hold onto their governing trifecta. If so, then expect continued dismantling of regulations that protect the environment, as well as strong backing for fossil fuel production. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, which polls suggest is possible, it could trigger a push to restore Biden-era clean energy tax credits, and support states wanting to restart mothballed wind and solar projects.
Data centres have been a hot-wire issue, with growing community opposition to their expansion – partly due to concerns over rising utility bills as the facilities gobble power. Whether Republicans or Democrats win Congress, both are likely to make tech firms pay for the extra electricity production they need, with the latter favouring renewable sources.
Governor races are also taking place in key states for climate issues, including Democrat-run California, which has used the courts to fight Trump’s attacks on clean energy.
Read more: National climate plans now promise half the emission cuts expected by UN
Read more: The more Europe relies on the US for energy, the more it’s vulnerable to pressure by Trump
COP30 Deforestation and Fossil Fuel Transition Roadmaps
Tuesday 3 November – Brazil
Brazil is set to unveil two global roadmaps: one for transitioning away from fossil fuels, the other for ending deforestation.
The COP30 presidency promised them in the dying hours of the Belém summit last November as a last-minute fix to break a political impasse. Since then, it has been consulting with countries, experts and campaigners around the world to gather ideas and sketch out the elements to include in these blueprints.
Don’t expect the roadmaps to offer any new global targets or give direct instructions on what countries must do, either to cut fossil fuel production and consumption or better protect forests. Rather, Brazil has said the documents will identify barriers and priority actions, highlight existing mechanisms and present a range of options that can be adapted to different national contexts.
It remains unclear what will happen with the reports once they are delivered on Tuesday. At the Bonn talks last June, a group of European and small island nations called for the roadmaps to be brought into the official negotiations, warning that a one-off report won’t cut it. But such efforts would undoubtedly face stiff opposition from fossil fuel-producing nations that objected to drafting the energy transition roadmap within the formal UN process last year.
Read more: European, island states seek clear future for global roadmap to cut fossil fuels
Read more: COP30 roadmap to end deforestation will invite countries to draft domestic plans
Read more: What we need to see in the roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels
UNEP Adaptation Gap Report
Wednesday 4 November – Nairobi, Kenya
The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) will publish its annual assessment of how well the world is planning, implementing and – crucially – financing measures to cope with worsening climate impacts.
Past editions have made for grim reading. Last year’s report warned of a widening gap between what developing countries need for adaptation and what they can access. It estimated they will need $310–365 billion a year by 2035, which is 12 to 14 times current international flows. The report also found that a goal of doubling international public adaptation finance by 2025 was likely to have been missed.
This year’s edition will be closely watched with adaptation expected to be a big-ticket item at COP31. Governments are likely to discuss the specifics of a commitment to triple adaptation finance for developing nations by 2035, agreed at COP30 last year – particularly what the baseline for that pledge is. Negotiators will be debating how to track progress against the 59 indicators of the Global Goal on Adaptation.
Read more: Editor’s Desk: Nepal’s disaster has laid bare the world’s adaptation accountability gap
Read more: Bonn climate talks end in “gridlock” on adaptation and emissions-cutting
Read more: New data shows rich nations likely missed 2025 goal to double adaptation finance
COP31 Climate Conference
Monday 9 November – Friday 20 November – Antalya, Türkiye
The climate community’s attention turns this month to Antalya for the annual UN climate summit. From the outset, COP31 will have an unprecedented, and potentially explosive, set-up: Türkiye is COP president overseeing the non-negotiated Action Agenda, while Australia runs the negotiations.
Billed, once again, as an “implementation COP”, the talks come amid a global energy crisis largely sparked by the actions of the US government, which is not expected to show up on the Turkish Riviera. It is also the first COP in the era of climate overshoot, coming just weeks after the UN officially confirmed the 1.5C warming limit will be breached and set out a narrow pathway to bring temperatures back down to the most ambitious Paris goal.
Unlike most recent COPs, the formal negotiations lack a clear headline item. Countries are due to establish and define the scope of the Just Transition Mechanism agreed in Belém last year, including its rules, governance and possible funding arrangements. On adaptation, vulnerable countries want a clearer path to delivering last year’s pledge to triple finance by 2035 and to putting the new progress indicators to work on the ground.
Governments are also likely to clash over next steps on the transition away from fossil fuels, and especially over whether the mitigation work programme – the forum dedicated to emission-cutting measures – has any future beyond this year.
Notable events to look out for in Antalya:
Opening session (9 November): The summit kicks off with the customary first-morning plenary. After the usual pageantry from the host nation, negotiating blocs and individual countries will deliver statements setting out their stall for the next two weeks. Watch out for a potential fight over the summit’s agenda – perhaps on issues relating to finance and trade following submissions requesting additional items – also a COP tradition.
Electrification (10 November): On Energy Day, the Turkish presidency is expected to formally launch its flagship electrification pledge, revealing which countries have signed up. Signatories will voluntarily commit to raising electricity’s share of global final energy consumption to 35% by 2035, though the current text does not require that power to come from clean sources. There is also a question mark over whether and how this can be included in the political cover decision the COP co-hosts have said they will aim to produce.
Leaders Summit (11-12 November): Heads of state and governments will jet into town for the traditional high-level segment in the middle of the first week, where world leaders typically talk up their climate record, air their grievances and call for more action.
Relatively few powerful leaders are on the list this time. Brazil’s Lula is set for another star turn this year, fresh from his surprise election win in October. The UK’s Andy Burnham, Spain’s Pedro Sanchez and China’s vice-premier Ding Xuexiang are expected, alongside Türkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Australia’s Anthony Albanese. In addition, African and small island nations will feature prominently.
Our COP31 Briefing newsletter will offer a more in-depth preview of the talks later this week.
Read more: Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31
Read more: COP31 electrification pledge leaves out clean power commitment
Read more: From Belém to Antalya – gains, gaps and challenges for a new Just Transition Mechanism
International Maritime Organization (IMO) Shipping Talks
Monday 23 November – Friday 4 December – London, United Kingdom
One year on from explosive talks in which Trump’s officials teamed up with Saudi Arabia to delay a deal to make the shipping industry greener, governments will gather on the banks of the Thames for another attempt to reach agreement.
The Net Zero Framework, provisionally agreed in October 2025, includes a series of emissions reduction targets for the owners of large ships along with penalties for not meeting them, rewards for doing so and measures to make the maritime transition fair.
The framework is likely to be either tweaked or radically rewritten so that it’s more acceptable to the US and Saudis. Brazil and Japan have submitted compromise proposals. Analysts find those will move shipping further away from being able to meet its climate goals.
There will be closed-door talks between November 23-27 and a second week of talks open to accredited media from November 30 to December 4. Agreement on a proposal, perhaps decided through a vote, is expected after long and technical negotiations. The shipping industry’s 3% share of the world’s emissions is at stake.
Read more: London talks raise hopes for green shipping deal
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