Key points
- COPs are regular meetings that bring together governments and observers to negotiate action on the world’s biggest environmental challenges
- The Rio Conventions are international environmental treaties that address the interlinked problems of climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation. Each of the three conventions has its own COP, its supreme decision-making body
- The next major ‘COP’ is the 17th meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17) taking place in Yerevan, Armenia. The focus is the first review of the global biodiversity framework
What does COP mean?
‘COP’ stands for Conference of the Parties. It is the supreme decision-making body of an international treaty (or ‘convention’). Parties to the treaty review its implementation and agree on broad global goals, procedural steps and targets set to tackle an issue.
Every COP has a country host, known as the ‘COP president’. Each conference is referred to by its number in the series.
What is the ‘climate COP’
The term COP is most often associated with the international treaty on climate change, also known as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
It was adopted in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit and entered into force in 1994. It calls on countries to address “dangerous human interference with the climate system”. The first climate COP was held in Berlin in 1995 and it takes place annually.
There are COPs for other international agreements. The other major COPs are the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP). These take place every two years.
Who attends the climate COP?
You might hear the term ‘parties’ in terms of who goes to COP. Parties are national governments and member states that are bound by the treaty and review its implementation.
There are nearly 200 parties to the UNFCCC. This includes almost every nation in the world, plus regional blocs like the European Union. There are also negotiating groups and alliances based on shared economic or geographic interests, such as the Alliance of Small Island States or the Least Developed Countries Group.
Only official parties have the legal right to negotiate and make decisions at the UNFCCC COP. Accredited observer organisations can participate in events, advise delegations and, where appropriate, take the floor, but do not have a formal vote. Observers include civil society organisations, youth and women’s groups, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, research organisations and others.
Observers can also form caucuses and negotiating groups that coordinate on strategies with the goal of influencing decisions. Examples include the CBD Women's Caucus and the International Indigenous Peoples' Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC).
Organisations such as IIED join with partners to try to influence the outcomes of COPs.
What was agreed at the last climate COP?
Negotiations at the UNFCCC pre-COP meeting in June 2026 (Photo: UNClimateChange/Lara Murillo, via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
The last climate COP was COP30, held in Belém, Brazil, which kicked off with high expectations, but failed to deliver on some of its key ambitions.
A significant outcome was a commitment to triple adaptation finance by 2035, alongside the adoption of 59 indicators to track progress on global adaptation. This might sound positive, but the target had been pushed back from 2030 and the agreement did not include any concrete financial commitments.
IIED’s Tom Mitchell described this as “a recipe for delay and confusion”, warning that weaker commitments leave the countries and communities most vulnerable to climate change facing greater uncertainty.
And on climate finance more broadly, COP30 did little to advance the Baku-to-Belém roadmap (covering finance for both mitigation and adaptation) to scale up finance for climate action to US$1.3 trillion by 2035.
For IIED, the biggest challenge is getting climate and nature finance to communities most at risk.
Brazil also positioned COP30 as the "nature COP", but there were no clear outcomes on nature including on the anticipated roadmap to halt and reverse deforestation. Countries also failed to agree a roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels.
When is the next COP?
The next major COP is the 17th UN biodiversity conference (CBD COP17), taking place in Yerevan, Armenia, from 19-30 October 2026. COP17 will mark the first global review of collective progress towards implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) - the landmark policy instrument agreed to halt and reverse global biodiversity loss.
COP17 will be an important test of whether commitments to reduce and halt biodiversity loss are translating into action.
IIED will be at COP17, working with partners to push for gender-just, Indigenous Peoples and local communities-led action.
Our engagement will focus on five main themes: shifting power to local communities, getting money where it’s needed most, challenging unfair economics, recognising the value of nature and putting gender justice at the heart of GBF implementation.
IIED and partners will host and contribute to six side events across the two weeks, covering gender-responsive biodiversity data, inclusive nature action, locally led restoration, equitable governance of protected areas, harmful subsidies and agroecology and agroforestry.
These events will bring together research, policy and community voices to explore putting global commitments into practice.
What about the next climate COP?
The next climate COP, COP31, will take place in Antalya, Türkiye, from 9-20 November 2026. Following COP30's focus on implementation, COP31 will seek to build on existing commitments and address gaps in climate action, finance and adaptation.
Sources
Conference of the Parties (COP), UNFCCC
Conference of the parties, Wikipedia
Everything you need to know about COP, Global Witness
What is COP?, McKinsey
What is COP?, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)
