COP 101: An Introduction to International Climate Negotiations
We’re going back to the basics to talk about what COP is, why it’s important, and how you can campaign for change.
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The jargon… The history… When it comes to big international climate events like COP, it can be hard for anyone to make sense of all the initials and technical terms and get to the heart of what is really going on. We get it.
But understanding the background and how COP works can help you make sense of what’s happening and join the conversation on global climate goals.
That’s why we’re here to break it down and offer some first steps for action!
The Basics
COP stands for the Conference of the Parties. The “parties” are the 198 nations that have ratified the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the world’s first international treaty on climate change.
The parties meet every year at a COP summit with the stated goal of cooperating on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stop rising temperatures.
Many COPs have one priority goal for the two weeks of negotiations, along with multiple secondary goals.
Over the past 10 years, for example, COPs have focused on setting global climate finance targets, reviewing national climate plans and progress to date, building adaptation goals, and producing the historic Paris Agreement.
Each party comes to negotiations with its own agenda and perspectives, shaped by its own unique realities at home (or collective realities, in the case of the European Union).
This translates into a wide range of agendas competing to shape COP outcomes. Witness, for example, the Marshall Islands, a Pacific Island nation (estimated population: 38,000) where the existential threat of rising sea levels makes the Paris goal of limiting warming to 1.5º C not an abstract target but a condition of survival.
As the nation’s climate envoy, Tina Stege, told a crowd at a 2025 Climate Week NYC event ahead of COP 30 in Belém, Brazil, “I need to go to Belém knowing that because I show up, 1.5 is something I can fight for and is still on the table when I leave. And if it’s not, then for me the process has failed.”
On the other side of the urgency spectrum are petrostates like Saudi Arabia, whose economy depends on producing climate-changing fossil fuels and whose energy minister openly derides net zero scenarios as “La la land.”
Many smaller nations or countries that share geographies or economic realities will often form coalitions to negotiate as a bloc and increase their influence in talks. Among the more influential blocs at COP are the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), the Arab States, and the Group of 77 and China (G77 and China).
A QUICK HISTORY OF COP SUMMITS
The first COP took place in 1995 in Berlin, Germany. In the years since, the world has had 29 COPs (as of October 2025) all around the world. The next major summit, COP 30 in Brazil, runs from November 10 to 21, 2025.
Some of the major accords and breakthroughs these summits have produced include:
- 1992 – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is Adopted
- 1995 (COP 1) – COP 1 Takes Place in Berlin
- 1997 (COP 3) – Kyoto Protocol is Adopted
- 2015 (COP 21) – Paris Agreement is Adopted
- 2022 (COP 27) – Loss and Damage Fund is Agreed to
- 2023 (COP 28) – The First Global Stocktake Concludes
While accords like the Paris Agreement make the headlines and history books, many of the summits in between have been critical in advancing negotiations and enabling smaller agreements that make the big breakthroughs possible. (Achieving consensus from nearly 200 countries is no easy matter – as the saying goes, the Paris Agreement wasn’t created in two weeks.)
Learn more about the history of global climate agreements.
Key Terms
1. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
The UNFCCC, signed in 1992, is the world’s foundational climate treaty. It established the global aim to stabilize “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”
While the UNFCCC did not set any specific emissions reductions goals, it called for research, reporting, negotiations, and future implementing agreements (such as emission targets and global climate finance mechanisms). It also laid out the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting structure for nations to come together to develop these agreements.
2. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
The IPCC, set up in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment Programme, is the leading international body on climate science. It regularly releases reports that synthesize published and peer-reviewed research conducted by experts around the world. This information helps the UNFCCC and international governments make informed policy decisions.
Many agreements made at COPs are informed by IPCC research. For example, negotiations and policies set forth in the Paris Agreement (see below) were largely informed by the scientific findings of the IPCC’s fifth assessment report, finalized in 2014. The most recent IPCC report, the Sixth Assessment Report (released in stages from 2021-2022), covers various topics including physical science, climate adaptation, and mitigation. The IPCC plans to release the next full assessment report in 2029.
Adopted in 1997 at COP 3, the Kyoto Protocol is the world’s first international climate treaty with binding emissions reduction targets. It bound 37 industrialized nations, economies in transition, and the European Union to meeting prescribed targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. The average emissions reduction target for these countries during the first commitment period of 2008-2012 was 5% below 1990 levels.
The protocol also included flexibility mechanisms, which allowed countries to reduce their net emissions by taking actions like investing in sustainable development in other countries. While these mechanisms were largely not successful, they were revolutionary for their time and set up new ways of thinking about developed countries’ global responsibilities.
Adopted in 2015 at COP 21, the Paris Agreement is another legally binding international climate acccord that requires all 196 member nations and economic unions to set emissions reductions plans. The goal of the agreement is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
As seen above, 1.5°C is the limit in global average temperature rise above pre-industrial levels that world leaders agreed to strive for when they signed onto the Paris Agreement. (For all our Fahrenheit users out there, 1.5°C is equivalent to 2.7°F.)
If the rise in global average temperatures exceeds 1.5°C over an extended period of time, scientists predict that many of earth’s natural systems will be pushed towards dangerous tipping points that dramatically alter the global climate system and exacerbate warming. (Think: ice sheet collapse causing less heat to be reflected back into space.) Climate impacts, such as drought, heat waves, and floods, at levels beyond 1.5°C also promise to be far worse.
6. Nationally-Determined Contributions
A country’s commitment to climate action. NDCs are to be submitted every five years and typically contain an emissions-reduction target, implementing policies, and various other climate action commitments such as renewable energy targets, reducing deforestation, and adaptation initiatives. They can contain unconditional commitments and commitments that are conditional upon receipt of international support. Each successive NDC must be a progression from the last and should reflect a country’s highest possible ambition.
At COP 27 in 2022, countries agreed to establish a fund dedicated to helping vulnerable countries address and respond to the catastrophic effects of climate change. The fund was adopted at COP 28 in 2023, and is housed within the World Bank. As of April 7, 2025, only USD 788.8 million has been pledged to the fund by 27 contributors.
Every five years, countries review and detail global progress to date on the goals of the Paris Agreement in a technical report and commit to further actions. These outcomes – for example how far nations have gone in reducing emissions and how far they still have to go to hold warming to 1.5ºC – are supposed to inform each country’s next NDC.
Key outcomes from the first global stocktake at COP 28 in 2023 include:
- A commitment to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.
- Triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030.
- Double energy efficiency progress globally by 2030.
Why Do We Need COPs?
There is exactly one way to effectively tackle the climate crisis: Together as one planet.
COP is where the world comes together each year to do just that. COPs enable the global community to collectively find just solutions, build networks of resilience, and hold all countries accountable.
They give representatives from the most vulnerable communities the opportunity to directly address big emitters. They provide forums for leaders to develop international climate finance mechanisms. Critically, they encourage nations to set emissions reduction targets together.
We have work to do. So far, the emissions reductions targets set at COPs will not keep warming below the 1.5°C threshold. According to a recent UN climate change report, the combined pledges of 193 Parties under the Paris Agreement as of September 2024 put the world on track to hit between 2.1-2.8°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. (And this is assuming all countries fully implement both the unconditional and conditional elements of their NDCs.)
To many, these numbers may sound small. After all, what’s a degree or two, right?
The challenge is that our climate is already changing rapidly in troubling ways that scientists cannot fully explain. All before we cross the 1.5º threshold (and stay there for an extended period of time). Every fraction of a degree above that number exponentially adds to the danger ahead.
There is another way to look at it though. Burning fossil fuels doesn’t just drive climate change. It also exposes a staggering 1.6 billion people to dangerous air pollution worldwide. It enriches and empowers autocrats. It boosts inflation, and it’s putting us on course for a future where climate change could cost the world some $38 trillion each year by mid-century.
Tackling climate change and quickly reducing emissions, on the other hand, isn’t just about stopping runaway warming. It’s about bringing cheap clean energy to billions, clearing the air so we can all breathe, and empowering nations to achieve real energy security – without relying on autocrats and petrostates.
That’s a future worth working for together – and COP has a critical role to play.
What We Need to Do
Join us to learn more about the COP process and how we can pull on the levers of power to keep the world moving forward to a clean energy future. Subscribe to our digital advocate list and we’ll keep you posted on the latest and what you can do to help advance international cooperation on climate, both at COPs and beyond.
