Bengaluru: The 30th Conference of Parties, or COP30, began at Belém in Brazil on November 10.

This will be a COP of truth, Brazilian officials, including the country’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said at the inaugural session of the COP.

But what are COPs and why are they important?

What are COPs?

The United Nations organises conferences of member parties for different conventions under it. Such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) — so there is a CBD COP. Similarly there’s a CITES COP – which meets every year to discuss matters related to the trade in endangered species.

The UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change also has its very own Conference of Parties – the acronym COP comes from this – every year. This Convention, adopted in 1992 at the Rio Summit and now ratified by 198 parties including India, serves as a framework for international cooperation and determining global response to climate change induced by human activities.

The first COP under this Convention took place in 1995, at Berlin, Germany. And the 30th iteration of this COP is what just kicked off yesterday.

What happens at COPs?

World leaders, government representatives, scientists, rights and climate activists, and members of the civil society attend these meetings and review progress made on ways to fight climate change and keep global temperatures to below 1.5 Degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

So, they talk strategy. What are the international and national actions that can be taken to curb the impacts of climate change? One way is for countries to implement adaptation mechanisms, which are specific actions that help people adapt to changes that climate change brings about. For example, developing early warning systems that can help people prepare for intense rains is an adaptation mechanism.

Specific documents are put together on adaptation during COPs, and these help define ways forward and more. Member parties discuss and negotiate about how best to go about this and haggle over words and phrases in these documents to ensure their best national interests are met.

Another is implementing mitigation strategies – taking actions to limit greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere. That’s where cutting emissions intensities by different countries comes into play through steps like planting more trees to increase carbon sequestration, or increasing installed renewable energy projects to decrease fossil fuel usage.

At COPs, scientists and groups – such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – present research pertaining to these issues; delegates discuss green technology, market mechanisms and more.

There’s also talk of money during COPs. Climate finance to fund different actions to counter climate change is a crucial discussion point in all COPs.

Also read: 'Climate Change Won't End Civilisation': Bill Gates Pivots Ahead of COP30

Why do COPs matter?

And this is why COPs are important – they strategise actions, ensure that these actions are implemented by member nations and mobilise money for implementing them. Members parties agree to take up actions based on ‘common but differentiated’ responsibilities, which depend on the national circumstances, including historical emissions and economic capacity of the respective nations.

Such multilateralism is crucial, with science showing how climate change – brought on by human activities such as burning of fossil fuels – is affecting the world in a big way now.

How serious is the climate crisis?

Let us look at a few of the studies and reports released this year related to this. According to the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation, 2025 is set to be declared one of the warmest ever years recorded in history. The concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have also reached record levels.

Together, the developments “mean that it will be virtually impossible to limit global warming to 1.5C in the next few years without temporarily overshooting the Paris Agreement target,” WMO chief Celeste Saulo told leaders  on November 7 in Belem in northern Brazil, the AFP reported on November 7.

The UNEP Emissions Gap Report released on November 4 revealed that the world is still not on track to limit global warming to within 1.5 Degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

People across the world are witnessing intense rainfall, heatwaves and other climate disasters. Another recent report by the UN report finds that climate disasters have displaced 250 million people in the past 10 years.

We’re seeing the impacts of climate change in India too. High rainfall during the monsoon this year was followed by numerous landslides in the Himalaya, like in Dharali in Uttarakhand in August. Unscientific and unplanned infrastructure projects have played a huge role in worsening the impact of these disasters.

The world has hit the first ever “climate tipping point” – that point when an environmental system, like an ice sheet, a rain forest or a coral reef, begins to shift into a different state. For example, a recent study shows that warm-water corals are in an irreversible die-off from successive marine heatwaves – marking the first “climate tipping point” on Earth. That is, these reefs have crossed the point from which the damage to them could be reversed. Even if temperature rise or other factors are later brought under control, they would continue to die.

Studies point, over and over again, to how fast climate change is unfolding and wreaking havoc across the globe. An urgent, sustained, and collective push — or “mutirão” as the Brazilians call it this year – by all nations may be the only way now to save the planet.

(Mutirão is a Portuguese word derived from the Indigenous Tupi-Guarani language that refers to a group coming together to work on a shared task.)

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