Recent COP activities in UNFCCC

The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the supreme decision-making body of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1992). All parties (nearly 200 countries) meet each year to review implementation and to negotiate climate action. Nepal takes part in the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group and the mountain countries' group.

Key milestones

• COP3, Kyoto (1997): Kyoto Protocol, with binding emission targets for developed countries and flexibility mechanisms (emissions trading, JI, CDM).
• COP15, Copenhagen (2009): non-binding Accord; goal to limit warming to 2 °C; goal of US$100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020.
• COP21, Paris (2015): Paris Agreement. Limit warming to well below 2 °C and aim for 1.5 °C; each country submits a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and updates it every five years; finance, adaptation and transparency rules.
• COP26, Glasgow (2021): Glasgow Climate Pact, the first mention of "phasing down" coal; the Paris rulebook was finished.
• COP27, Sharm el-Sheikh (2022): a Loss and Damage fund was agreed.
• COP28, Dubai (2023): first global stocktake; call for "transitioning away from fossil fuels" and for tripling renewable capacity by 2030.
• COP29, Baku (2024): New Collective Quantified Goal on finance: developed countries to lead at least US$300 billion per year by 2035, with an aim of US$1.3 trillion from all sources; Article 6 carbon market rules agreed.
• COP30, Belém, Brazil (2025): the "Global Mutirão" decision; a call to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035; a just transition mechanism agreed; the Tropical Forest Forever Facility launched to protect forests. No agreed roadmap away from fossil fuels was included in the final text. New NDCs (NDC 3.0) were due around this COP.

Nepal's role

Nepal has submitted its NDC and a Long-Term Strategy for net-zero emissions by 2045, and it raises mountain and climate-vulnerability concerns and loss and damage at each COP.