New Calls for Reform Emerge as COP29 Negotiations Struggle

A former UNFCCC chief and others say streamlined and more frequent science-based meetings are needed to address the escalating climate crisis.

BAKU, Azerbaijan—Calls to reform the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations grew louder last week as former high-level UNFCCC officials, leading scientists and other climate experts published a letter saying the annual talks “cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity.”

The Nov. 15 missive was addressed to UNFCCC executive secretary Simon Stiell and signed by, among others, Christiana Figueres, who led the organization from 2010 to 2016; Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland; Ban Ki-moon, former U.N. secretary-general; and Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Action Research.

“We need a shift from negotiation to implementation,” they wrote, “enabling the COP to deliver on agreed commitments and ensure the urgent energy transition and phase-out of fossil energy.”

While the letter acknowledged that there has been progress, it noted that it has not been fast enough to avoid increasingly severe climate impacts. Without the voluntary national emission reduction plans submitted under the Paris Agreement, warming had been projected to reach as high as 4 to 5 degrees Celsius (7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, but the latest projections under current policies are now for about 2.7 to 2.9 degrees Celsius (5 to 6 degrees Fahrenheit) for the average global temperature increase by the end of this century. And the COP process has unlocked billions of dollars for climate finance, including money to compensate developing countries for the losses and damages they are suffering from global warming.

The message to the UNFCCC came near the end of the first week of COP29 in Baku. After last year’s hard-won agreement at the COP in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels, negotiators have moved on to other topics in Baku.

Even though the UNFCCC process established a policy framework for climate action, the authors of the new letter said the COPs need a “fundamental overhaul.”

Number one on the list of suggested improvements is changing the selection process for host countries to exclude those that do not support the phase out and transition away from fossil energy sources. Future host countries must show “a high level of ambition to uphold the goals of the Paris Agreement,” they wrote.

The talks should also be streamlined to focus on action, they said. The letter proposes smaller, more frequent and solution-driven meetings where countries report on progress and, at a time when consequences from climate change are rapidly worsening, “are held accountable in line with the latest science.” 

The voluntary framework of the Paris Agreement is not working because countries are not being held to account to ensure that their national climate plans align with the latest scientific evidence, the letter contends. Forthcoming plans, it says, should be scrutinized under “rigorous peer-reviewed processes, independent scientific oversight and transparent tracking of pledges and action.”

UNFCCC officials have not responded to questions about the letter.

Not Trying Hard Enough

It’s not the first time there have been efforts to reform the COPs, said Joanna Depledge, a researcher with the Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance at Cambridge University who has written numerous peer-reviewed papers on the UNFCCC and also worked with the organization’s secretariat.

In a 2006 paper, she presented evidence that the process has ossified because it seems “unable to process new information, facilitate the free-flow of new ideas, or foster understanding and trust among negotiators.” Reasons include the complexity of the UNFCCC’s climate negotiating process, as well as its onerous decision-making rules, the absence of the U.S. during the George W. Bush administration and active obstruction by some states, especially Saudi Arabia. She singled out that country’s role in hindering progress in a 2008 paper called “Striving for No: Saudi Arabia in the Climate Change Regime.”

Similar criticisms of the COP process were raised by former Vice President Al Gore in the closing days of last year’s COP28 in Dubai, when negotiators were struggling to seal a deal on loss and damage funding for countries hit by climate impacts. As those talks went into overtime, Gore said in an interview with Bloomberg News that the UNFCCC should be able to move ahead on at least some decisions by a majority vote rather than consensus.

Gore did not respond to additional questions about those comments in the months after COP28.

“My overall sense is that it will be impossible to institute the kind of reform that would lead to a supermajority voting,” Depledge said, “although that would undoubtedly be the best thing to do for the process.”

She said the consensus approach has become so entrenched that even countries that previously have expressed an interest in supermajority voting would now be scared off, “not wanting to rock the boat.”

“I think they would say, ‘Well, we’ve done pretty well without it,’” she said. “I think everybody’s worried about being on the receiving end of that voting rule. And I think that the forces that were against a voting rule to start off with are still very much against it.” Those forces, she added, would include obstructionist countries like Saudi Arabia, but also the U.S., which has long declined to submit to most international governance.

Failed Reform Efforts

Looking back farther at the history of the UNFCCC, Depledge said there have been several concerted efforts to reform the process, the first in the run-up to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol negotiations. 

Countries favoring the Kyoto Protocol, which set the earliest targets for greenhouse gas cuts, were worried that OPEC and other oil-producing countries would veto it. That created a sense of urgency to get voting rules in place instead of requiring a consensus, she said.

A strong COP presidency with agenda-setting power might have been able to advance such a proposal, but at the time it was more of a ceremonial role. Even so, the presidency did present a list of voting options that were ultimately not adopted, including passing measures with a seven-eighths majority. 

That item has been on the agenda since then but has languished, with only “perfunctory consultations” at subsequent COPs, Depledge said. The next effort came at COP16 in Mexico in 2011 when Mexico and Papua New Guinea put forward a formal proposal after raising concerns about lowest common denominator outcomes and vague language on emissions reductions and climate financing. 

The proposal was based on the ability to fundamentally amend the UNFCCC with a three-quarters majority vote. But countries came to no agreement on that at COP16 and, Depledge said, even though serious discussions of the idea may have continued for another year, it never went anywhere. It’s remained a neglected provisional agenda item since then.

“At the moment, on the agenda, we do have three items that could provide an opportunity to do something,” she said. “The fact that none of them are taken up I think is quite telling. They all have different backstories, which means that nobody is very enthusiastic about taking them up.”

Fundamental Fairness

Similar questions about the fundamental fairness of the process emerged again last year at COP28 in Dubai when a consensus statement was gavelled through even though representatives of small island states imminently threatened by sea level rise were not in the room. The head of the Marshall Islands delegation at COP29, John Silk, said the outcome was like a “weak and leaky canoe” and that the process was not inclusive.

The UNFCCC’s original intent was “to ensure that even the most vulnerable voices would be heard,” said Kalee Kreider, a public affairs and environmental expert who served as a spokesperson for Gore. And in many ways, she said, that’s worked, giving vulnerable nations an equal voice in the talks. 

One of the fears about changing the system: “You could end up with major players, under a new set of rules, stifling that,” she said.

When the George W. Bush administration put forward the idea of a major economies forum for the world’s biggest countries as part of the UNFCCC process, it elicited a negative response based on fears “that a small set of major players could redraw things on a napkin,” Kreider said. “The UNFCCC is the one forum where there is a certain equity, regardless of current emissions or historical emissions. I think that will be very difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge.”

Establishing new criteria for the selection of host countries, as suggested by the recent letter on UNFCCC reform, would also come with its own set of issues, she said.

“The host country issue is really challenging because it’s so expensive to host. That’s in part because of security arrangements, in part because of what’s required to work with the UNFCCC to put together a COP,” she said. “They’re hiring PR firms, they’re hiring legal shops, the consultant costs are high.”

As a result, a process that used to be primarily government-funded now also relies on corporate and philanthropic support, multiple power centers that add complexity the early years of the UNFCCC didn’t have. Shrinking the talks but preserving transparency would require non-governmental stakeholders, corporations and civil society groups to all step down, Kreider added.

Another idea that’s been floated to make the climate conferences more efficient is to drop the now-traditional leader segments, when presidents, prime ministers and dictators arrive to give short speeches, have their photos taken beside the COP logos and then leave again. While they don’t add much to the negotiations, they draw a lot of attention and require a lot of additional resources.

Kreider said that it might be worth exploring the idea of not having national leaders show up at every COP. 

“We could embed some of it at the United Nations General Assembly in September, where they’re already gathering anyway,” she said. “I would do a world leaders climate summit every five years or so. That could dramatically decrease the size.”

In the end, she said, the UNFCCC is the only global process that exists to tackle a vexing worldwide problem. Thoughtful people created the process, recognizing that there are flaws in it and are trying to reform it, she said.

“This is what we have,” Kreider said, “so those of conscience and goodwill really have to do their best to try and make it work.”

Cover photo: UNFCCC executive secretary Simon Stiell (left) and COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev chat prior to a plenary session on the opening day of the climate conference on Nov. 11 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images