Triple Up, Double Down: COP28 Seeks To Keep 1.5 Alive

The 2024 UN Climate Change Conference, also known as COP28, takes place from 30 November to 12 December 2023 in the UAE.

What is a COP? To understand this, we need to look back in time. In 1990, negotiations began on what eventually became the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Convention was adopted in 1992, and opened for signature at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, now known as the Rio Earth Summit. The Convention currently has 198 members, or Parties, and each year a Conference of the Parties (COP) is held.

COP1 took place in Berlin in 1995. At COP3, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted by 192 Parties, and the Paris Agreement was adopted by 196 Parties at COP21 in Paris. COP26 was held in Glasgow in 2021, and led to the signing of the Glasgow Climate Pact. The Pact is a package of decisions, including a collective agreement by Parties to work to limit the rise in the global average temperature to 1.5 °C.