Every year, Climate Curious, like many media outlets, gives a rundown of the latest COP and what successes or failures there have been. Before we do that, however, I wanted to share a quick overview of what on earth is COP and what it can do – before heading to some key takeaways from this year’s COP30.
What is COP?
COP actually stands for the ‘Conference of the Parties’ and it’s the term used when signatories of an international agreement meet. The number added on – like in COP30 – reflects how many times those signatories have met. Confusingly, there are a number of COPs floating about that refer to various international agreements. For example, there is the UN Convention on Biological Diversity – they’ll be having COP17 next year in Armenia.
However, COP is often used as a shorthand for the UN’s annual summit on Climate Change. This year it was COP30 based in Belém in Brazil. Specifically, COP is when decisions are made by the UNFCCC – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The UNFCCC is the part of the UN that makes decisions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to protect our planet and people from the consequences of climate change.
There are 197 parties (i.e. countries) that signed up to UNFCCC (full list here, including the UK, USA, China) and usually the majority (190+) of parties attend each COP. The UNFCCC was established in 1992 and the first COP took place in 1995. You can read more about the history of the UNFCCC here.
The key takeaway: there is an international agreement with the majority of the world’s countries that we need to work together to combat climate change by limiting average global temperature and to manage the inevitable impacts of climate change.
What decisions have been made at past COPs?
So at the end of each COP, the aim of the game is to review what countries have done in the past year to combat climate change and agree on a statement or binding agreement for the next year. Practically that includes a lot of negotiating, debating and information sharing. As well as representatives from each of the countries, there are a lot of ‘observers’ at the conference including civil society organisations, charities, financial investors, local communities, and the private sector (more of this below!).
Various well known agreements have come out of previous COPs, for instance:
– Kyoto Protocol (COP3, 1997) – the protocol called on industrialised or developed nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, recognising they had emitted more carbon historically than developing nations. 192 countries were part of the protocol, but only 37 countries and the EU were legally required to reduce their emissions. The Paris Agreement has now effectively superseded the Kyoto Protocol (More info here).
– Paris Agreement (COP21, 2015) – this agreement aims for countries to limit global warming to below 1.5C or “well below 2C” above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. It also asks for countries to become carbon neutral by 2050. Under this agreement, countries have to submit their annual greenhouse gas emissions, known as Nationally Determined Contributions. You can see which countries are on target to hit their reduction in climate emissions here. Majority of countries have ratified the Paris Agreement (i.e. making it law in their nation), but notably President Trump has started the process to withdraw the United States from the agreement for a second time. (More info here).
In a recent Climate Curious episode, Why loss and damage funding matters, we spoke to Harjeet Singh, who was a key architect of the Loss and Damage Fund – a landmark agreement from COP27 in 2022. The fund recognises that developing nations who contributed the least to current carbon emissions are now facing the most severe consequences of climate change. The fund will support these nations to cover the costs of rebuilding after extreme weather events. Harjeet explains why the fund is so important in his episode:
“So you realise that there are some unavoidable and irreversible impacts for which you need to actually help communities recover from. What happens when I lose my home? When I lose my farm? When there’s a loss of life, loss of biodiversity, loss of land, it’s gone permanently. That’s not adaptation. That’s addressing loss and damage. And there was nothing in the UN climate system [for that loss]. That’s why we had to fight for it for 30 years and eventually we got that agreement at COP27. That’s why you need this fund, which is now kind of a third pillar of climate action to help people recover from climate impacts.”
As Harjeet goes on to explain, the majority of disasters are weather related and getting worse due to climate change. The fund so far has commitments of about $768 million, but this is a drop in the ocean for the predicted $400 billion the fund needs to work effectively and quickly. Listen to Harjeet’s episode for more on the campaign to ‘Fill the Fund’.
The key takeaway: COP has succeeded in introducing some landmark agreements that are pushing the international community to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to protect people and the planet. However, individual countries still have to commit and invest on hitting these climate targets or supporting initiatives like the Loss and Damage fund.
So what now? Key takeaways from COP30
COP30 took place from 10 to 21 November 2025 in Belém in Brazil. Climate Curious caught up with seven experts that joined the conference to find out their key takeaways in the latest episode, Mixtape: COP30 takeaways:
The bad news
Many of our experts said they were ready for bigger actions – as Fenton Lutunatabua said – they want “a leap forward”. Multiple folks mentioned they were unhappy about the lack of commitment to stop the use of fossil fuels and phase out coal and gas.
Tzeoporah Berman shared that so many organisers and attendees were discussing how to phase out fossil fuels and wanted this reflected in the final COP30 plans. Tzeoporah explains, “when the final text was gavelled through the words fossil fuels had been ripped right out of the text. We cannot afford to wait another year for another weak political signal while communities burn and drown.” Harjeet Singh and other experts believed that fossil fuel lobbyists who were in large attendance at COP30 are obstructing progress. You can learn more about why fossil fuel lobbyists are at a climate conference in Climate Curious episode, Why fossil fuels were a dirty word at COP.
Kumi Nadoo echoed this disappointment, sharing a useful analogy: “The old saying goes, COP sets the floor, not the ceiling and this year the floor was wobbling like an old shack in the stone.” Even though COP30 negotiations didn’t deliver on the fossil fuel phase out, there is some inspiring leadership from the Global South and Indigenous communities, shares Kumi and they have pushed this issue far up the agenda at the next meeting. So much so that Harjeet Singh concluded that:
The good news
A Just Transition Mechanism was agreed – this will be a new platform to help countries manage the shift from fossil fuel based economies/energy to clean energy based economics/energy in a way that supports workers, protects communities and generally ensures equity. As Raysa França told us:
“The Just Transition Mechanism, which was such a huge win… It was built by the power of people, youth, indigenous leaders, workers campaigners, organizations that were organizing for just to happen long before COP even began. And philanthropy, AKA donated money, also helped to sustain this kind of work and made COP30 more inclusive.”
Nonette Royo told us how Indigenous communities are holding the line and pledging to finance and support land rights:
People really care – despite COP being criticised for bureaucratic red tape there are moments where you truly feel like a global team. As Nicole Rycroft explained:
“You feel like you’ve wandered into the most fantastic, weirdly bureaucratic escape rooms that are full of wonderful people who you’ve never met from different cultures and languages and politics who are all bent over working together to achieve the seemingly impossible.”
I will leave you on that positive note of care and belief in people. At Climate Curious, we will be sure to keep you up to date with both big global news from COPs and the local climate news and hopefully make you feel less worried or confused about both!
Lead image credit: UN Climate Change – Kamran Guliyev – CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
