What is COP28?

And Why am I Going?

I’m going to COP28 in Dubai in a couple of weeks. I’m planning to chronicle the adventure here, but thought I should I write a bit beforehand too. Call it the Pre-Adventure.

Today’s installment attempts to answer the questions, “What is COP28?” and “Why am I going to it?”

What’s a COP?

If you stick with me on this adventure for the next month, you’re going to be subjected to a lot of acronyms. The first is COP (pronounced: cop) and stands for “Conference of the Parties.” That sounds like it should be a good time! But no, it is not a gathering of festival goers. In this context, “party” refers to a group of people like, “Seinfeld, party of four.”

Back in 1992 there were 154 parties — all representatives of different nations — that met in Rio and agreed to the UNFCCC (pronounced: you en eff triple sea), which is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Those 154 parties pledged to address the dangerous interference that humans have had on our climate (I’ll write more about that in future installments). Then they met for the first time in 1995 to start negotiating what everyone should do. That gathering was held in Berlin and called COP1.

There has been another COP every year since then (except in 2020 because of the pandemic), and they are numbered sequentially. At COP3 in Kyoto, Japan in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was established. It set binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 5% over 1990 levels for 38 industrialized countries. That was supposed to happen by 2012. It is a matter of interpretation as to whether these “binding” targets were met (confirming the adage: figures don’t lie, but liars use figures).

COP21 was held in Paris in 2015. This is the where the now-infamous Paris Agreement was adopted by 196 parties. They agreed that we really need to limit the average global warming over pre-industrial levels to 1.5 degrees (or bad things will happen), and that we really really need to limit it to 2 degrees (or really bad things will happen). The only country with any significant emissions that didn’t agree to it was Iran. Each of the countries made commitments about what they would do by certain dates so that collectively the target would be achieved. Then, of course, President Trump reneged on the commitments from the USA, and then President Biden reinstated them.

One of the major emphases of COP28 is supposed to be a “stocktaking.” That is to say, all the parties are going to report on how they’re doing with the commitments that were made in the Paris Agreement. Spoiler alert: it’s not looking good. We’ll be blowing by the 1.5 degree target, and it’s not looking good for 2 degrees unless there are some very significant changes in how much energy we use and where we get that energy. That is only going to happen if a lot of people make it a priority to advocate for significant changes.

So why am I going to COP28?

I’m going to be one of those people who make it a priority to advocate for significant changes in how much energy we use and where we get it. There will be some 30 or 40 thousand people who are official observers of the COP. We get to sit in on the official sessions and inform our constituents about what is happening. I was selected by CCOP (pronounced: sea cop), the Christian Climate Observers Program, to join their group for the second week of the COP.

In America in particular, there is a strong negative correlation between being people of faith and caring about climate change. CCOP is hoping to change that. Over the course of this adventure, I hope to more fully work out why Christians of all people should be most concerned about what is happening to our planet.

More anon.