From Berlin to Antalya, COP's 31-year climate diplomacy test

The 31-year history of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will be held in Türkiye this year under the name COP31, has witnessed turning points in the global climate struggle, unmet commitments and many climate problems waiting to be solved.

Antalya will host the 31st COP, which is held in a different country every year within the scope of combating climate change, between 9-20 November.

COP, which is the abbreviation of the English expression Conference of the Parties, refers to international meetings where evaluations on the climate crisis are made.

AA correspondent compiled the decisions taken, agreements signed, crises experienced and prominent commitments at the COP from the first meeting to today.

The first COP, held in Berlin, the capital of Germany, in 1995, was chaired by the then German Minister of Environment Angela Merkel, with the participation of 117 parties and 53 observer countries.

At the summit, the priority agenda item was the initiation of global negotiations to strengthen the fight against climate change.

The expectation that developed and developing countries will implement different practices in the fight against the climate crisis has formed the basis of discussions that will increasingly intensify in the coming years.

In this process, developing countries pointed to developed countries as responsible for the climate crisis. However, many developed countries that carry out intensive industrial activities, such as the USA, argued that they were under pressure to reduce emissions. Many ideas have been put forward to reduce the tension between countries. It took many years to reach a solution between the parties. At this stage, providing various aid to developing countries to help them achieve sustainable growth came to the fore. However, there has been no serious change in developed countries reducing their emissions.

The second COP meeting was hosted by Switzerland. The most important development in the second summit, where similar issues were brought to the agenda, was that the USA, which was the focus of criticism with its intensive industrial activities, accepted "the necessity of binding emission reductions to combat climate change".

Volunteering has been replaced by legal binding

However, the fact that the commitments made at the summits were on a voluntary basis made it difficult to achieve the goals. At the COP3 held in Kyoto, Japan, the parties took the principle of volunteering one step further and created the "legal binding" agenda.

The Kyoto Protocol, presented at the end of COP3, subjected developed countries to binding legal regulations to reduce carbon emissions, and these countries were asked to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent by 2012. However, it was announced that developing countries, including China, will only submit annual greenhouse gas inventory reports.

The United States signed the Kyoto Protocol at the COP4 summit, which it initially approached with reservations, but never ratified the agreement.

At COP5, it was emphasized that the implementation principles and mechanisms should be determined before the agreement is implemented.

COP6, held in The Hague, Netherlands, in November 2000, was suspended after the parties could not reach an agreement. Negotiations continued in Bonn in July 2001. Countries other than the United States agreed on the means of implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.

However, a statement was made by the USA during the summit process, which caused a crisis. The then US President, George W. Bush, announced that his country would not implement the Kyoto Protocol with the following words:

"As the President of the United States charged with protecting the well-being of the American people and workers, I will not surrender our nation to a flimsy international agreement that will leave millions of our citizens unemployed."

Summits marked by the Kyoto Protocol

In COP7, COP8 and COP9, which were held after the US decision to withdraw, the focus was on clarifying the technical details of the Kyoto Protocol. During this process, efforts to reconcile the parties on a final global agreement continued.

Failure to reach the number of approvals required for the Kyoto Protocol to enter into force was one of the obstacles to the process in 2004. The necessary conditions were completed when Russia ratified the protocol on November 18, 2004. At COP10 held in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, this development, which made it possible for the protocol to enter into force, was among the prominent topics on the agenda.

During the period from COP11 to COP14, efforts were made to reach a compromise with the countries that did not accept the Kyoto Protocol. During the meetings, issues such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening climate actions and creating different funds were discussed.

The fact that the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol will end in 2012 has accelerated the search for a new global climate agreement. COP15, convened in this context, was held with intense participation in order to determine the path to be followed after the protocol.

At the end of COP15, the Copenhagen Consensus was signed, which was seen as an important step in terms of climate finance. By agreement, developed countries agreed to provide 100 billion dollars a year until 2020 to help developing countries reduce their emissions and increase their resilience to the effects of climate change.

At COP16, an agreement was reached on the Cancun Agreements, which envisaged limiting the global temperature increase to 2 degrees compared to the pre-industrial period.

First steps of the Paris Agreement

The World Bank's report that global temperatures may increase by 4 degrees by 2100 was one of the prominent agenda topics of COP17. The report continued to be discussed at COP18 held in Doha, the capital of Qatar. At the summit, the parties came together to discuss the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and to negotiate a new, legally binding agreement covering the countries' emission reduction targets. The first steps of the process leading to the Paris Agreement were taken at this meeting.

At COP19, losses and damages resulting from extreme weather events caused by the climate crisis were included among the priority agenda items. As a result of the discussions, it was decided to establish the Warsaw International Loss and Damage Mechanism within the scope of combating these damages.

In line with the aim of creating a concrete output of the processes that have been going on for years, the Paris Agreement was accepted with the participation of 195 countries and the European Union at the end of COP21, which was held in Paris, the capital of France, in 2015. The agreement, which is the first legally binding international document in the field of climate change since 1997, entered into force on November 4, 2016, after the necessary approval conditions were met.

The agreement, which aims to keep the global temperature increase "well below" 2 degrees compared to the pre-industrial period and to make efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees, also included calls for countries to submit their National Contribution Declarations (NDC) as soon as possible in order to achieve global greenhouse gas emission targets.

US leaving the Paris Agreement

The transition of the Paris Agreement to the implementation phase was among the priority goals of COP22, which was held in Marrakesh, Morocco, in 2016. On the other hand, the attitude of the newly elected US President Donald Trump regarding climate policies changed the course of the meeting. Trump, just like Bush, claimed that the climate agreement would harm the country's economy.

Trump has stated many times that he doesn't believe in such things, describing the climate crisis as a "hoax." Trump, who continued his opposition to combating climate change throughout the summit, announced that his country would withdraw from the Paris Agreement in a statement he made in June 2017, before the COP23 held in Germany a year later.

Following Trump's decision to withdraw, the necessary preparations for the implementation process of the Paris Agreement, which will come into force in 2020, were the main topics of COP24 in 2018. The parties continued their negotiations to finalize the articles of the agreement and determine the common rules to be followed in practice.

At COP25, market instruments and international cooperation topics that will support the achievement of the goals of the Paris Agreement were discussed. Unresolved issues such as determining the rules of carbon trading, ensuring long-term climate finance and increasing transparency came to the fore in the negotiations.

USA rejoined the parties

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, COP26 was postponed by one year and held in 2021. At the summit, reducing methane emissions was among the prominent topics of the climate agenda. The new president, Joe Biden, who took office in 2021 and re-included the USA in the Paris Agreement, from which Trump withdrew, went one step further and announced that his country has joined the parties that have pledged to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. For the first time in this period, coal use, which causes global warming, was the subject of a COP summit. In the calls made especially to China and India, they were asked to gradually end their use of coal and its derivative fossil fuels.

Losses and damages were also discussed at COP27, which focused on the energy and food crisis following the Russia-Ukraine War.

The first final text to reference fossil fuels

COP28 was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). An important step was taken at the summit, which was the focus of reactions because it was held in an oil country. In the final text published at the end of the summit, fossil fuels were referenced for the first time in the history of the summits and a call was included to "move away from fossil fuels in a fair, orderly and equal manner in energy systems, and to accelerate actions in this critical 10 years to achieve the 2050 net zero targets."

During the negotiations held at COP28, the creation of new financing sources to cover the losses and damages suffered by the countries that are most affected by the climate crisis and more vulnerable to this crisis came to the agenda. Conference Chairman and UAE's Special Envoy on Climate Change at the UN, Sultan Al-Jaber, announced that his country will contribute 100 million dollars to the planned fund. Together with the commitments of other countries, the total amount promised for the fund was 700 million dollars.

The main agenda of COP29 was the determination of the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), which points to a new climate finance to contribute to the climate action of developing countries. However, in the final text published on the NCQG target at the end of the summit, citing the National Contribution Declarations reports of developing countries, it was stated that the climate finance needed by these countries is 455 to 584 billion dollars annually until 2030, and 5.1 to 6.8 trillion dollars in total, but a fund target of at least 300 billion dollars annually until 2035 was announced.

One of the important developments in the climate negotiations after the summit was the decision of Donald Trump, who was elected US President for the second time, to withdraw his country from the Paris Agreement. While conveying the withdrawal decision to the UN, the Washington administration stated that leaving the agreement would enter into force on January 27, 2026. Trump, who criticized climate policies on economic grounds, defended his decision to withdraw from the agreement with the approach of protecting the economic interests of the United States.

The expected decisions were not made in Brazil

Although it was expected that a road map to exit fossil fuels would be prepared at the COP30 held in Belem, Brazil, a clear statement on this issue was not included in the final text.

In the final text, it was stated that the Global Implementation Accelerator, which is based on volunteering, was launched in order to support countries to implement their National Contribution Declarations and national adaptation plans more quickly. It was stated that the mechanism, which will be carried out under the guidance of COP presidents, will be supported by open and inclusive information sessions throughout 2026.

During the summit, the protection of the Amazon Forests and the problems faced by indigenous peoples, who are among the most affected by the climate crisis, came to the fore. In this context, the difficulties experienced by indigenous peoples in various areas, especially access to finance, were frequently mentioned.