The power and pageantry of the COP presidency

Thirty years ago, around 2,000 people attended the very first United Nations Conference of Parties on Climate Change, or COP1. In 2023, nearly 100,000 people registered for the 28th edition of the event. Over the course of the last two and a half decades, COP has evolved from a niche group of country delegations, United Nations bodies, and NGOs, all fighting a fight that very few took seriously. Today, it is a behemoth. The summit has become one of the world’s most influential geopolitical events — shaping not only the climate agenda, but also the internal policies of the countries that host it, and their standing on the world stage. Hosting COP has become an act of diplomacy: A chance for nations to showcase political credibility, attract investment, and recast their image on the world stage. Whether for oil-rich states seeking legitimacy or emerging economies courting climate finance, the COP presidency has evolved into a tool of international influence and a catalyst for domestic transformation. As a two-week conference, COP runs longer than most, acting simultaneously as a space of policy negotiations and as an industry show for private players, philanthropies, and impact investors. Over the years, geopolitical alignments have shifted, from divisions within the Group of 77 coalition of developing countries, to the rise of China as a renewable energy powerhouse, to the growing voice of the small island developing states, or SIDS, and the least developed countries group, or LDCs. Today, COP creates a city within the cities hosting it, complete with pop-up transportation systems, COP flags on the highways, brand-new buildings, and special taxi rates for COP attendees. As COP has grown, so has the desire to host it. “COPs have become one of these mega events — kind of like the Olympics — that serves the foreign policy of the country as well,” Gvantsa Gverdtsiteli, climate researcher at Transparency International, told Devex. “[Host countries] want to show that they are international diplomats,” one expert with deep knowledge of the COP presidencies told Devex. They requested to be anonymous due to the political nature of the topic. “It’s got nothing to do with the climate. It’s really about showing that they’re capable of pulling this thing off.” Why countries fight to host COP <div style="text-align: center; max-width: 100%;"><div style="position: relative; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4800 / 2512; overflow: hidden;"> <iframe src="https://www.canva.com/design/DAG3g87suHs/rDFxA7O5TKEVGXJRFUonGw/watch?embed&autoplay=1" style="position: absolute; top: -1px; left: 0; width: 100%; height: calc(100% + 1px); border: none;" allowfullscreen loading="lazy"> </iframe></div><span style="display: block; margin-top: 8px; font-family: Georgia, serif; color: gray; font-size: 0.75em; font-style: italic;">COP host countries are chosen through a regional rotation system based on the five U.N. regional groups — Africa, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Western Europe and others, shown above. This system was inherited from the U.N. General Assembly’s geographic groupings created in the 1960s. Each group nominates a host when it’s its turn, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Bureau confirms it. If no country volunteers, the conference defaults to Bonn, Germany, where the UNFCCC Secretariat is based.</span><br/><br/></div> Several previous host countries have climate rhetoric that aligns with their desire to host the conference. European countries such as Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, and France have historically taken more action on climate change. But other hosts, such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Azerbaijan — many of them oil-rich countries — do not historically have climate change high on their list of government priorities. Still, they fought to host the COP. Last year’s COP host, Azerbaijan, released 32 Armenians held in Azerbaijani prisons in exchange for Armenia lifting its veto on Azerbaijan as host. The United Kingdom offered Turkey an investment conference in London and a promise to talk with other countries about classifying Turkey as a “developing country” in exchange for backing down from its bid to host COP26. Turkey and Australia are locked in a competitive bid for COP31, and Ethiopia and Nigeria are already competing to host COP32. “Certainly for the UAE and Azerbaijan, they wanted to prove that they were, you know, big players on the international stage,” said the expert. The U.K. also harnessed its role as COP president to show the world that, despite Brexit, it was still an active member of the global order. “At a time when there was Brexit going on, and the U.K.’s reputation globally was slightly tarnished by that, the Conservative government at the time saw the advantages of hosting an international conference like this, and showing that they can lead,” Cosima Cassel, program lead at E3G, told Devex. Cassel worked for the U.K. government at the time. “I think the U.K.’s standing abroad kind of increased during that time and it did give them this credibility,” she said. The development dividend isn’t only diplomatic. Host governments frequently channel aid and investment into visible improvements — roads, transport links, green spaces, and renewable energy facilities — projects that both serve local communities and showcase progress to international audiences. In Egypt and Morocco, for example, the lead-up to COP accelerated donor-backed renewable energy projects and urban development around the host cities. The power of the president Intrinsic in hosting COP is that the country takes on the presidency of the conference. They are responsible for raising ambition, developing relationships with countries, institutions, businesses and stakeholders, and creating a vision for the best possible outcome of the meeting. Host countries also get a say in what type of theme the COP will have, whether it be finance, like Azerbaijan and Denmark; implementation like Morocco and Brazil; energy transition like the U.K.; or loss and damage like Egypt. The rules of procedure, which were never officially agreed upon due to the lack of consensus, say the presidency is responsible for opening and closing the session, presiding over meetings, managing speakers, putting questions to vote, etc. But while their official mandate is vague, their effective authority is broad. Presidencies can promote issues they care about, steer the conversations leading up to the event, and decide who will and won’t be in the room when certain topics are discussed. When talks are blocked, the presidency must find a way forward. When there are multiple issues on the table, the presidency decides how much time each negotiation stream will get and whether they will all be discussed in plenary or in smaller breakout groups. In his book on the history of COP negotiations, former U.K. diplomat Peter Betts points out that the more parallel negotiating streams that are happening at a time, the more people each delegation needs to cover them all. France’s COP21 was internationally recognized as successful after the passage of the Paris Agreement. After the conclusion, COP21 President Laurent Fabius was lauded for his tireless efforts. He was known for structuring COP21 in a way that kept momentum going, reducing the chance that a country would block something, and bringing the necessary parties together for agreement. COP21 shares a lot of similarities with the 1997 Kyoto COP3, where the Japanese presidency, led by Hiroshi Ohki, shepherded the Kyoto Protocol into adoption by focusing on closed informal consultation to avoid deadlocks and more intensely pressure delegates into compromising. COP6 struggled. The conference, which was under a Dutch presidency, was first held in the Hague and then, when no agreement could be made, again in Bonn, Germany. The conference was stalled largely due to overloading, with the presidency handling multiple working groups and complex streams of negotiations. Many countries were also said to have had their own bilateral meetings, undermining presidential authority. The 2009 climate summit, COP15 in Copenhagen, also disappointed many because it failed to produce a comprehensive, legally binding agreement. Expectations were high in Copenhagen, but the talks fell apart. The presidency was criticized for a top-down and nontransparent approach, trying to impose a deal drafted by a small group of leaders onto the rest of the world, which caused deep rifts between developing and developed countries. The Moroccan COP under Salaheddine Mezouar, which came just one year after the Paris Agreement, positioned itself as an “implementation COP” — similar to what Brazil is doing this year. Procedurally, that meant highlighting the work streams necessary to carry out the promises. Morocco also used its role as a developing country to give credence to thematic priorities such as loss and damage and adaptation. While the rules of procedure say that the presidency must be impartial, “that’s just on paper,” said Monserrat Madariaga Gómez de Cuenca, the legal adviser for the Chilean delegation in 2019. In practice, domestic leanings have been clear. In 2024, the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, said that oil and gas are gifts from God during his opening speech. Sultan Al Jaber, the COP28 president, was also the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. This year, Brazil is using its role to prioritize forest preservation. But at the core of their power and pride is diplomacy and positive public attention. “For Egypt and the UAE, there was a certain amount of national pride at stake that they needed to be seen to be forward leaning,” said Clare Shakya, the global managing director for climate at The Nature Conservancy and former climate change group director for the International Institute for Environment and Development. “And in some ways, we got more than we expected to get.” The UAE, in particular, faced harsh criticism as host, both as a petrostate and with the COP28 president also running the national oil company. Despite this, COP28 succeeded in multiple ways: it adopted the UAE consensus, which includes, for the first time in a COP decision, a reference to transitioning away from fossil fuels in a “just, orderly and equitable manner,” it operationalized the long-awaited loss and damage fund for highly vulnerable countries, and it broadened the climate agenda to include declarations on sustainable agriculture, resilient food systems, and a linking of climate and health. “We were all outraged,” said the expert who asked for anonymity. “But [the president] actually got a decent result. He was the one that got fossil fuels mentioned for the first time.” The loss and damage fund was an essential win for the climate and development space, underscoring how the two worlds can better converge — with traditional development financiers now central to delivering climate justice for vulnerable communities. Experts said that the UAE’s success is likely due to how much money they put toward it — hiring negotiators around the world, spending the year inviting people to Dubai, and investing in public relations firms to sell the UAE as a climate-friendly destination. Because of this desire to be catapulted onto the world stage, the UAE prioritized diplomacy, and climate action benefited. Azerbaijan had less success. “I think the biggest thing that Azerbaijan had hosted before was the [Formula One],” said the expert. “So to then move to COP was a huge step. They didn’t have the experience.” The lack of resources was clear in the negotiations. “Climate envoys were having conversations in halls and nonprescribed informal huddles in corridors and the interplanetaries,” said Shakya. “This showed that the Azerbaijani presidency was really struggling.” Walking the walk <div style="position: relative; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 940 / 788; overflow: hidden;"> <iframe src='https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/timeline3/latest/embed/index.html?source=v2%3A2PACX-1vQNwfzfuAJDaDgaaaidAbyo7hS6spavG4jiaytuTJ8xH6WEWk8r3DadcAkMmJtGeCfAAEZkatuseyo4&font=Lustria-Lato&lang=en&initial_zoom=5&width=100%25&height=600' width='100%' height='600' webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen frameborder='0'></iframe></iframe> </div> While climate ambition may not be the reason countries want to host COP, their overall success relies on whether they take their mandate seriously. In most cases, good diplomacy has meant walking the walk. Across the history of COPs, many countries established progressive climate policies around the period that they were hosts. In some cases, these domestic shifts also attract development finance — from concessional loans to technical partnerships — creating a feedback loop where hosting COP catalyzes both political and economic support for climate-aligned growth. COP has left a trail of good policy in its wake. Immediately prior to hosting COP21, France adopted major national legislation, its energy transition law for green growth, setting a target of 40% greenhouse gas emission reduction by 2030, a renewables share target, and a goal to reduce final energy consumption by 20% by 2030 and by 50% by 2050 compared to 2012 levels. In the lead-up and aftermath of COP26, the U.K. reiterated and reinforced its legally binding target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The U.K. government also targeted the full phaseout of unabated coal in the power sector by 2025. Chile, which was the host of COP25 — despite the conference being held in Madrid, Spain — announced it would shut down all 28 coal-fired power plants by 2040 in the weeks before the COP, and end new coal projects immediately. It also passed one of Latin America’s most comprehensive climate laws, establishing net-zero by 2050 as legally binding. This was particularly important, de Cuenca said, because “this was a right-wing government, so normally not the greenest, but they wanted this international reputation, it was important that they look ambitious.” In 2016, the year Marrakech hosted COP22, Morocco pledged that 42% of its energy mix would come from renewable sources by 2020. Morocco also created a new development strategy in 2017. Not every country has installed progressive climate action plans due to its role as host. Qatar, host of COP18 and first host from the Gulf region, did not pass any new domestic climate legislation and instead the president of the conference, Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, said gas was “good news” for the energy transition. But that was an exception to the overwhelming trend. Even Azerbaijan, which used COP29 to highlight the need for oil and gas, updated its national determined contribution, or NDC, to pledge a 40% cut in emissions by 2050 and an increase in renewable power capacity of 30% by 2030. “If you’re not behaving at home as you wish other countries to behave, then that also kind of limits your diplomatic convening power and credibility when trying to convince other countries to be ambitious,” said Cassel. “On the whole, you get an uplift of domestic policies with the presidency, because that need to demonstrate authentic action seems to be very important for each COP president,” said Shakya. “In order to be able to influence globally, you have to be showing and doing things domestically. And I think we do see an improvement in domestic politics each time.”