NEWS AND OPINION: You must have noticed the failure of the Cop meetings because carbon dioxide emissions went up last year rather than down as our leaders had promised years ago. Humankind is still burning coal at incredible rates. There is no real desire to curb the burning of fossil fuels. We are too dependent on them. The climate is warming up and we are in a state of paralysis on climate change which has been starkly highlighted by the fact that our international leaders cannot even decide where Cop29 is going to be held!
It isn’t enough that humankind can’t come together to reach an international agreement to curb the burning of fossil fuels to save the planet, we have to rub salt into our wounds by arguing ad nauseam about where the next convention is going to be held. By the way, “Cop” stands for “conference of the Parties”. It is not slang for a police officer
Next year’s summit is meant to be held by one of the 23 countries making up the UN grouping of Eastern Europe. This includes Russia, Ukraine and Poland and Bulgaria.
Russia is out of the question because of their illegal invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine is out of the question I guess because it has been invaded. Bulgaria has placed a bid to host it but Russia has objected to it. Russia has been accused by the Bulgarian environment Minister of “trying to extract as much benefit or inflict as much damage as possible.”
Normally the summit’s location is arranged two years in advance but the forthcoming summit remains homeless because of international bickering about where it is to be held.
There are some non-EU states in the Eastern European group which could host it but they are being blocked by each other. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting. Russia and Ukraine are fighting as mentioned. Belarus supports Russia and they are out. Moldova, Albania, Georgia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with Montenegro and North Macedonia “have little capacity to host the event” according to the Bulgarian environment minister.
There are too many blocking countries and they refuse to unblock.
The summit might revert to Bonn in Germany but the city is not keen to host the event 🙂 . Despite that it seems to be the likeliest alternative because it is the home to the Secretariat of the UN Convention on Climate Change, which is the body which oversees international climate negotiations. Under the UN rules Bonn is the likely candidate.
It is shocking, to people like me and observers to see this kind of bickering and stupid international arguments over where the summit should be held. If we can’t even agree that there is simply no possibility of agreeing anything meaningful at the next summit which will be Cop29.
