Each year, a Friends of the Earth International delegation of activists and experts go to the UNFCCC COP to make our calls for climate justice, equity and action heard.
We join our allies, including the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice and many others, to bring the voices of those most impacted by climate change to this global policy-making space. Our call is on developed countries to:
- do their fair share of emissions reductions according to their historical responsibility for causing the climate crisis;
- repay their climate debt;
- provide rapid, sufficient climate finance to developing countries. This is to pay for a just transition away from fossil fuels, for adaptation, and for loss and damage.
We call out false solutions as well as the corporations who promote them. Notably: carbon markets, offsetting, ‘nature-based solutions‘ and REDD, .
Background: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties
In force since 1994, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meets for annual negotiations. These are known as the Conference of the Parties (COP). Despite growing urgency, the climate talks have failed to deliver meaningful and just outcomes. Progress has been repeatedly blocked by rich countries and the strong fossil fuel lobby.
In 2017, COP21 adopted the Paris Agreement, which contained a weak commitment to holding global warming “to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. Also, it contained non-binding targets for national emissions reductions (NDCs). The 2021 COP26 reached a deal on carbon markets. This, combined with weak pledges for ‘net zero’ by 2050 and the inclusion of seductive sounding ‘nature-based solutions’, spells a rush for unproven technofixes and land grabbing for offset projects in the global south. Our fight for climate justice continues.
See below for news, publications and other resources related to our campaigns and policy issues at the UNFCCC COP.
