Published

1 year ago

December 24, 2024

Alice Rush

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal is WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Lead, former Minister of Environment for Peru and COP20 President.

As we approach the latest UN climate summit, COP29, we find ourselves once more demanding faster progress, greater ambition and redoubled commitments from governments to meet the urgency of the climate crisis. We also, once more, face calls for the COP process to be reformed and participation curtailed.

These calls are partly a response to COP28, held in Dubai last year, which was attended by 83,884 people – indeed an exception. More delegates means, for example, that negotiating rooms are fuller, compromising participation for some who are deeply engaged in the process. The growing pressure to reform COPs is also partly an expression of frustration with the process and with slow advances over many years on solving the world’s most pressing environmental crisis.

Not just governments

But suggestions that COPs should become more exclusive, or less frequent, or that negotiations should be separated from civil society participation, are misguided. It is essential that the COPs continue to be transparent and inclusive, especially for Global South governments and civil society, if they are to build the broad-based support we need to transition to a net-zero world.

Each COP – or Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to give the full title – is, as the name suggests, an intergovernmental negotiation. However, the COPs have evolved over time to become much more than that, reflecting the perspectives and needs of a much wider range of stakeholders.

As COP Troika dithers on 1.5C-aligned climate plans, experts set the bar high

An important development in that direction took place almost 10 years ago, at COP20 in Lima, where I served as COP president. There, we launched the Lima-Paris Action Agenda, to bring non-state actors – cities, business, NGOs, Indigenous communities – into the COP process. It allowed them to organise, define targets and actions, and create campaigns within the formal machinery of the COP.

This Action Agenda has given non-state actors a role – alongside the UNFCCC Secretariat and the Climate Champions appointed by COP host countries – in supporting the climate ambition of governments. It has spawned initiatives such as the Race to Zero, Race to Resilience and the Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda.

Five rings of negotiations

I see the COPs as operating in five ‘rings’ – which are concentric, influence each other, but allow different constituencies to operate and make their voices heard.

The innermost ring is the most important: the negotiations themselves. This is the forum in which decisions are made, in the context of mandates set by preceding COPs. For COP29, these include the New Collective Quantified Goal for finance, the Global Goal for Adaptation, implementation of the UAE Consensus, and the new cycle of national climate plans (or Nationally Determined Contributions, NDCs). These processes must be transparent and accountable to the global public.

The second ring is formed of the high-level thematic events, organised by the presidency of each COP. These events – such as those on health, fresh water, and climate and nature held in Dubai – take place outside the negotiations, but can help initiate processes that inform future negotiations and create political momentum.

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The third ring comprises the Action Agenda, as discussed above. The fourth ring is often dismissed as a mere trade fair, but the pavilions at COP provide a place for business, NGOs, Indigenous Peoples, academia and other stakeholders to meet, share ideas and create new partnerships. New ideas and concepts are launched, contested, and sink or swim – which can have a profound impact on global debates throughout the year and all over the world.

Finally, the fifth ring is that of bilateral and plurilateral relations between key state actors, which is a vital connective point to advance decision-making on key climate issues.

Balanced and equitable participation

These five rings depend on the participation of many thousands of people. Making the process more efficient by reducing participation of key actors will undermine the collective nature of the climate negotiations.

This is a multilateral process in which every voice, not just those of governments, must be heard, through a bottom-up, democratic set of interlinked discussions at many levels. We recognize the need for balanced and equitable participation – especially from the Global South – and the need to limit the influence of fossil fuel and other corporate lobbies aimed at inhibiting rapid progress towards climate goals. But neither of these necessarily means less people overall participating in COPs – although there can be logistical difficulties in managing large conferences.

Peak COP? UN looks to shrink Baku and Belém climate summits

The annual climate summits must also be as accessible as possible, including to participants from least-developed countries and marginalised communities, who may not have the resources to readily travel to the talks. Host governments have a role to play, whether by financially supporting participation from those who can least afford it, or by capping the costs that hotels and service providers charge delegates. Some recent COPs have been characterised by rampant profiteering and price–gouging, with hotels dramatically increasing their rates to take advantage of delegates.

The real cause of sluggish progress

Some critics of the COP process have blamed the high numbers of attendees for slow progress in the process. That blame is misdirected. The real culprits are governments around the world that have not set ambitious targets or are not doing enough to reach the targets they have committed to – and the entrenched polluting interests that undermine political will and commitments to strong climate action.

Proposals for reducing participation at COPs are a distraction from the main task at hand: finding mechanisms that make NDCs more ambitious, and targets within them more enforceable. Without that, we will not have a multilateral process that is equal to the climate emergency that we face, no matter how many people are in the room.

The post Why we need to keep climate COPs inclusive appeared first on Climate Home News.

Why we need to keep climate COPs inclusive

Climate Change

Wondering How to Talk About Climate Change? Take a Lesson from Bad Bunny

Published

15 hours ago

March 21, 2026

Alice Rush

Discussing climate change can make a difference. Focusing on the impacts in everyday life is a good place to start, experts say.

By David Sun

When Bad Bunny climbed onto broken power lines during his Super Bowl halftime show, millions of viewers saw a spectacle. Climate communicators saw a lesson in how to talk about climate change.

Wondering How to Talk About Climate Change? Take a Lesson from Bad Bunny

Climate Change

Greenpeace response to escalating attacks on gas fields in Middle East

Published

19 hours ago

March 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Sydney, Thursday 19 March 2026 — In response to escalating attacks on gas fields in the Middle East, including Israeli strikes on Iran’s giant South Pars gas field and Iranian retaliations on gas fields in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the following lines can be attributed to Solaye Snider, Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific:

“The targeting of gas fields across the Middle East is a perilous escalation that reinforces just how vulnerable our fossil-fuelled world really is.

“Oil and gas have long been used as tools of power and coercion by authoritarian regimes. They cause climate chaos and environmental pollution and they drive conflict and war. The energy security of every nation still hooked on gas, including Australia, is under direct threat.

“For countries that are reliant on gas imports, like Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Korea, this crisis is just getting started. It can take months to restart a gas export facility once it is shut down, meaning the shockwaves of these strikes will be felt for a long time to come.

“It is a gross and tragic injustice that while civilians are killed and lose their homes to this escalating violence, and families struggle with a tightening cost-of-living, gas giants like Woodside and Santos have seen their share prices surge on the prospect of windfall war profits.

“We must break this cycle. Transitioning to local renewable energy is the way to protect Australian households from the inherent volatility of fossil fuels like gas.”

-ENDS-

Images available for download via the Greenpeace Media Library

Media contact: Lucy Keller on 0491 135 308 or lkeller@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace response to escalating attacks on gas fields in Middle East

Climate Change

DeBriefed 20 March 2026: Energy crisis deepens | Brazil’s new climate plan | New Zealand climate case

Published

1 day ago

March 20, 2026

Alice Rush

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.

This week

Iran war fallout continues

WORK FROM HOME: The International Energy Agency has advised its member countries to take 10 steps in response to the ongoing energy crisis fuelled by the Iran war, including reducing highway speeds and encouraging people to work from home, said the Guardian. It came after retaliatory attacks between Israel and Iran continued to destroy energy infrastructure in the Middle East, causing energy prices to soar further, said Reuters.

SUPPLY DISRUPTED: The IEA also said it is prepared to make more of its member nations’ 1.4bn-barrel oil reserves available to help ease the impacts of what it called the “biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market”, reported Bloomberg. The outlet noted that Asian countries have been hit hardest by the shortages, caused by a “near-halt” of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

EU SUMMIT: The energy crisis dominated talks at an EU leaders summit on Thursday, said Politico. Arriving at the summit, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez attacked other European leaders for using the energy crisis as an excuse to “gut climate policies”, according to the EU Observer. The Financial Times said that some European leaders have asked the European Commission to overhaul its flagship emissions trading system (ETS) by summer in response to the energy crisis.

COAL BOOST: In response to the conflict, utility companies in Asia are “boosting coal-fired power generation to cut costs and safeguard energy supply”, said Reuters. UN climate change executive secretary Simon Stiell told Reuters: “If there was ever a moment to accelerate that energy transition, breaking dependencies which have shackled economies, this is the time.”

Around the world

WINDFARM WINDFALL: The Trump administration in the US is considering a nearly $1bn settlement with TotalEnergies to cancel the French energy company’s two planned windfarms off the US east coast and have it instead invest in fossil-gas infrastructure in Texas, according to documents seen by the New York Times.
BUSINESS CLASH: Following “clashes” with the agribusiness sector, Brazil launched its new climate plan, which calls for a 49-58% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2022 levels by 2025 and includes “specific guidelines for different sectors”, reported Folha de Sao Paolo.
SALES SLUMP: Sales of liquified petroleum gas from India’s state-run oil companies have fallen by 17% this month due to cuts in deliveries to commercial and industrial consumers “amid the widespread logistical bottlenecks triggered by the Iran war”, said the Economic Times.
CUBAN ENERGY CRISIS: The US imposed an “effective oil blockade” on Cuba, leaving the country facing its “worst energy crisis in decades”, reported the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Chinese exports of solar panels to the island have “skyrocketed” since 2023, it added.
RECORD HIGHS: An “unprecedented” heatwave in the western and south-western US is “shattering dozens of temperature records” and could lead to drought in California in the coming months, reported the Los Angeles Times.
VULNERABILITY CONCERNS: Landslides that killed more than 100 people in southern Ethiopia have “renewed concerns about Ethiopia’s vulnerability to climate-related disasters”, said the Addis Standard.

1%

The percentage of England’s land surface that could be devoted to renewables by 2050, according to the long-awaited “land-use framework” released by the UK government this week and covered by Carbon Brief.

Latest climate research

Approaching international climate action by shifting the burden of mitigation onto higher-income countries could avoid 13.5 million premature deaths from air pollution in middle- and lower-income countries by 2050 | The Lancet Global Health
Beavers can turn the ecosystems surrounding streams into “persistent” sinks of carbon that can sequester an order of magnitude more than non-beaver-modified ecosystems can store | Communications Earth & Environment
Mobile-phone data from seven diverse countries during the summer heatwaves of 2022-23 showed a “widespread tendency to withdraw into homes” and an increase in out-of-home activities that can offer cooling, such as indoor retail | Environmental Research: Climate

(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)

Captured

Nearly_750_studies_have_found_that_climate_change_has_made_extreme_events_more_severe_or_likely

Carbon Brief this week published a significant update to its map of how climate change is affecting extreme weather events around the world. The map now includes 232 new extreme weather events from studies published in 2024 and 2025. Of these events, 196 were made more severe or more likely to occur by human-driven climate change, 12 were made less severe or less likely to occur and 10 had no discernible human influence. (The remaining 14 studies were inconclusive.)

Spotlight

New Zealand breaks new ground on climate litigation

This week, Carbon Brief speaks to experts about a first-of-its-kind climate lawsuit in New Zealand.

Earlier this week, representatives from two environmentally focused legal advocacy groups challenged the New Zealand government’s climate-action plan in court.

The plaintiffs argued that the measures laid out in the plan are insufficient to achieve the country’s legal obligation to hold global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.

The case could be “influential” in shaping lawsuits and rulings around the world, one legal expert not involved in the case told Carbon Brief.

Reductions vs removals

The new case contends that there are several issues regarding the New Zealand government’s response to climate change.

One of the key arguments the plaintiffs make is that New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan, which covers the period from 2026-30, is overreliant on the use of tree-planting to achieve its targets.

When the plan was released in December 2024, it was “immediately clear that it was a pretty lacklustre plan”, Eliza Prestidge Oldfield, senior legal researcher at the Environmental Law Initiative, one of the groups behind the legal case, told Carbon Brief.

The plan called for large-scale planting of pine tree plantations, which are not native to New Zealand and have a high risk of burning. Because of this, there are concerns about how permanent any carbon removal provided by these plantations actually can be, experts told Carbon Brief.

Catherine Higham, senior policy fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment who was not involved in the case, said:

“The lawyers are arguing that there are real challenges with equating the emissions that you may be able to remove from the atmosphere through afforestation with actual emissions reductions, which are much more certain.”

‘Global dialogue’

While other climate lawsuits elsewhere in the world have also focused on the inadequacy of a government’s plan to meet its stated emissions-reduction targets, this is the first such case that addresses the role of removals head-on.

Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the Climate Litigation Network, told Carbon Brief that the lawsuit “builds on a decade of climate litigation” in national, regional and international courts.

Maxwell, who was not involved in the New Zealand case, added that there is a “real global dialogue” between, not just plaintiffs, but national courts as well. She said:

“[National courts] look to common issues that have been decided in other countries. They’re not binding on that court if it’s at the national level, but they are influential.”

Given that many other countries have legal frameworks requiring their governments to create plans outlining the pathway to their long-term climate targets, Prestidge Oldfield told Carbon Brief that other jurisdictions “should be interested in these questions around the level of certainty”.

Higham noted that, even if the case is successful, addressing the plan’s shortfalls will face its own set of challenges. She told Carbon Brief:

“A lot of these decisions are political and they can be politically contentious…Those [measures] have to be put into action through legislation and that is then subject to the usual political process. So that’s where the challenge comes in.”

While she could not speculate on the outcome of the case, Prestidge Oldfield said it was “very heartening” to see that both the judge and the opposing counsel “appreciated how much of a concern climate change is globally”.

She added:

“It’s not a given that the judge would even be interested in climate change.”

Watch, read, listen

COMMON APPROACH: The Heated podcast analysed fossil-fuel advertisements and highlighted the most common deception tactics they employed.

THREAT ASSESSMENT: Mongabay mapped the potential threat that oil extraction poses to Venezuela’s ecosystems, including the Amazon rainforest and its coral reefs.

SALT LAKES? GREAT!: High Country News interviewed journalist Dr Caroline Tracey about her new book on saline lakes – such as Utah’s Great Salt Lake – the threats that face them and what they can teach us.

Coming up

23 March-2 April: Third meeting of the preparatory commission for the High Seas Treaty, New York
24-27 March: 64th session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Bangkok
26-29 March: 14th ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization, Yaoundé, Cameroon

Pick of the jobs

International Centre of Research for the Environment and Development (CIRAD), IPCC chapter scientist | Salary: €3,200-3,750 per month. Location: Nogent-sur-Marne, France
Avaaz, chief of staff | Salary: Dependent on location. Location: Remote, with preferred time zones
Green Party, social media officer | Salary: £31,592-£32,192. Location: Remote or Westminster, UK

DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.

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