COP is flawed. But it is still important.
For the past 30 years, global representatives have gathered for the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) climate summits.
The COP process has become a theatre of contradiction, with recent summits being hosted by oil-rich nations and financed by polluters.
COP is flawed and rife with failures. But it remains one of the few spaces were civil society, youth, scientists and Indigenous leaders can confront power face-to-face.
Why? Because is matters. We desperately need more global collaboration when multilateralism is threatened and authoritarianism is rising.
We must strip away industry influence, put human rights at the centre and make outcomes binding.
Janelle Lapointe, Senior Adviser, Indigenous Strategy
All about COP
Earth Summit
COP was born after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, as a means to tackle climate change on a global level.
30 years of COP
The first official COP meeting was held in Berlin, Germany, 1995.
The Paris Agreement
After COP21 in Paris, nearly 200 countries signed a legally binding global treaty, the Paris Agreement, to limit climate change.
"Stop breaking it!" David Suzuki reflects on his daughter’s iconic 1992 UN speech
David Suzuki reminisces about Severn Cullis-Suzuki’s famous 1992 speech, and their family ties to Brazil.
The only powerful mechanism of absorbing and sequestering carbon right now is nature itself.
David Suzuki
Expert Articles
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