The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) released a report warning about the risks faced by 90 million displaced people in nations vulnerable to climate change, a document published before COP31.
Although the UN established the body responsible for climate summits 33 years ago, the 30 meetings held were not enough to prevent global warming from exceeding the 1.5ºC limit above pre-industrial levels, the central goal of the Paris Agreement.
The international assemblies also failed to curb the record annual increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the continuous registration of high temperatures, and the growing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as the heat recorded in Europe this year.
Starting next Monday, the UN, through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will again gather thousands of participants, including technicians and politicians, in Antalya, Turkey, for the 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31), aiming to debate and make decisions on the climate.
The UNFCCC oversees multilateralism in combating global warming and established the Conference of the Parties with the objective of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated by human activity, which is altering the climate and warming the planet.
One of the central topics of COP31 is the Turkish suggestion to set the goal that electricity accounts for 35% of total world energy consumption by 2035.
However, recent history shows difficulties for COPs in meeting goals; a few weeks ago, a UN report indicated that the 1.5ºC limit, established in the Paris Agreement in 2015, had already been exceeded, with 1.8ºC seen as the most optimistic projection.
Historical Milestones of Climate Summits
In 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, the first major UN meeting focused on scientific evidence of global warming and rapid climate change took place, resulting in the creation of the UNFCCC and the decision to hold COPs to update GHG control efforts. Although the Convention did not define emission limits, it provided for the creation of 'protocols' for this purpose.
In 1995, Berlin hosted COP1, where countries made commitments to reduce GHG emissions higher than those from the Rio Summit.
COP3, in Kyoto, in 1997, is considered a fundamental milestone due to the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty that imposed GHG emission limits on a group of highly polluting nations and created a carbon market.
In 2001, Marrakech, at COP7, the Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon, albeit with attenuated objectives compared to the originals. The conference also produced a declaration emphasizing the link between sustainable development and climate change.
In 2010, Mexico, at COP16, there was the first attempt to create an annual fund of $100 billion to support a 'Green Climate Fund,' which was only approved in 2015, in Paris.
In 2014, the European Union approved the binding goal of reducing GHG emissions by 40% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.
In 2015, France, during COP21, signed the Paris Agreement on December 12, a historic event for setting goals to prevent global warming from exceeding two degrees Celsius (2ºC) above pre-industrial average, or preferably, not exceeding 1.5ºC.
Unlike Kyoto, the Paris Agreement does not set emission targets but rather holds countries accountable for submitting and meeting their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
In 2017, Bona, at COP23, the Talanoa Dialogue began, whose purpose is to assess national efforts towards carbon neutrality (stopping the emission of more GHGs than can be absorbed, mainly via forests).
In 2018, scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in a report that the world needs a profound and unprecedented transformation to mitigate the worst climate impacts, stating that the goals of the Paris Agreement were insufficient.
In 2019, the IPCC published two more reports, both underlining the urgency of unprecedented decisions to prevent a climate catastrophe, one focused on land-use GHG emissions and another on oceans and cryosphere. The UN also warned that human action was putting one million animal and plant species at risk of extinction. During this period, the European Commission presented the European Green Deal to regulate actions aimed at carbon neutrality by 2050.
In 2020, the United States, one of the largest GHG emitters, officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement under President Donald Trump's administration, returning with Joe Biden, but leaving again in the same year.
In 2021, the European Union ratified the European Climate Law, setting a goal to reduce GHG emissions by 55% by 2030. The IPCC released a new report indicating that global temperature will exceed 1.5ºC by the end of this decade, having crossed this threshold several times since then.
COP26, in Glasgow, maintained the goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5ºC and committed to the gradual decarbonization of coal use.
In 2022, the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Canada, reached a historic agreement, including the commitment to protect 30% of the planet by 2030.
At COP27, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, a future fund for loss and damage was created, and the promise to assist poorer countries in combating climate change with $100 billion annually was reaffirmed—promises that have never been fulfilled.
On February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine, a persistent conflict that generated an economic and energy crisis with direct and indirect environmental consequences. Extreme weather events continue to occur, such as the death of 1,700 people in Pakistan due to the largest floods ever recorded.
In 2023, Dubai, at COP28, countries agreed on a transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems and on tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030, despite fossil fuels remaining dominant.
COP29, hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2024, set a climate finance goal of $300 billion annually by 2035 for developing nations, a goal that has yet to be realized.
In 2025, Brazil hosted COP30 in the Amazon, and despite being the location where the initiative was conceived by the UN, no agreement was reached on the implementation of commitments.
