What is COP?
COP stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’ and is a mechanism for decision making around the interconnected challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and desertification. Each of these issues have dedicated meetings or ‘COPs’ to bring key parties together to measure progress and negotiate the best way forward. The most recent COP was the biodiversity COP16 held in Columbia in October, a forum for crucial discussions on issues such as mobilising funds for nature restoration, and giving indigenous communities a more formal role in biodiversity decision-making processes.
The current COP being held in Baku, Azerbaijan, is focused on climate change, and this conference is often the most widely discussed. The climate COP brings together the countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1994, and committed to the Paris Agreement in 2015 to limit global temperature increase to within 1.5 degrees.
What is on the agenda at COP29?
- Measuring progress: a key issue at COP28 last year was a global stock take to measure progress against each country’s commitment to reduce their emissions. A year on there will be scrutiny around how these commitments have been actioned, in addition to looking at practical action on mitigating, and adapting to, the impacts of climate change.
- Finance: there is talk of this conference being the ‘finance COP’ because a crucial topic is how to mobilise funds that will help to mitigate the impacts of climate change, especially in the global south. This will come in the form of ‘NCQG’ the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance.
- Just transition: climate change is an issue caused by the wealthiest in society, yet it has the greatest impact on some of the most marginalised groups. Therefore a key challenge when transitioning to a low carbon future is to redress this balance and ensure that the benefits of a new system are felt by all, and especially those who have been most negatively impacted by climate change. This is also referred to as climate justice.
Is it working and what can we do?
If you have been following the news, you will have seen that there is a constant stream of criticism around the climate COP process. This criticism questions how effective the negotiations really are, and whether the conference itself is used for the self-interest of those hosting, attending or supporting the event rather than for the collective goal of emissions reduction.
Whilst some of this cynicism is valid, there is fundamental value in the COP process because it is an essential vehicle to facilitate the global collective action required to manage the climate crisis. The challenge is unique in the fact that its impacts will be felt globally across all sectors so requires a globally consistent and collaborative approach to manage it.
Whilst the COP process itself may seem far away and difficult to engage with on a local level, the UK have actually set themselves apart at the negotiations by being the first G7 country committing to updating its targets for ambitious climate action in the next decade. The UK has pledged that by 2035 it will reduce emissions by 81% (from a 1990 baseline). This is an important signal to UK businesses that the direction of travel is towards a greener fairer society through decarbonisation. This gives us grounds for optimism, and demonstrates that the core values of enterprises like TrueFood – putting people and planet at the heart of its business model – could start to become the norm. So as members of a small local cooperative, we are playing an important role in advocating for a better kind of business that is contributing to a much bigger shift.