Every COP since the beginning, in one table
COP stands for Conference of the Parties, the annual summit where every country that signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meets to negotiate the global response to climate change. The first was held in Berlin in 1995. As of COP30 in Belém in November 2025, there have been thirty of them, missing only 2020, when the meeting was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This isn't a mandatory framework the way BRSR or ESRS are. No company files a report against a COP outcome. But COP decisions are exactly what eventually becomes the mandatory frameworks, national NDCs, and net-zero targets everywhere else in this Guide trace back to a COP decision. Knowing the sequence is what makes the rest of the Regulations Library make sense as a story rather than a pile of unrelated acronyms.
| COP | Location | Year | What actually happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| COP1 | Berlin, Germany | 1995 | The first COP. Produced the Berlin Mandate, a catalogue of commitments that let countries choose their own initiatives rather than binding targets. |
| COP2 | Geneva, Switzerland | 1996 | Pushed toward binding quantitative emissions targets for industrialised countries, laying groundwork for Kyoto. |
| COP3 | Kyoto, Japan | 1997 | The Kyoto Protocol adopted, the first legally binding emissions-reduction treaty for industrialised countries, and the foundation of the modern carbon market. |
| COP4 | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 1998 | Adopted the Buenos Aires Plan of Action to advance Kyoto Protocol implementation mechanisms. |
| COP5 | Bonn, Germany | 1999 | Largely a technical session with no major breakthrough. |
| COP6 | The Hague, Netherlands | 2000 | Talks broke down; the session resumed in Bonn in 2001 to reach agreement on Kyoto's implementation rules. |
| COP7 | Marrakesh, Morocco | 2001 | Adopted the Marrakesh Accords, the detailed rulebook for Kyoto, and established the Adaptation Fund. |
| COP8 | New Delhi, India | 2002 | Adopted the Delhi Declaration, emphasising sustainable development alongside climate action. |
| COP9 | Milan, Italy | 2003 | Agreed on rules to operationalise the Adaptation Fund and reviewed early national reporting. |
| COP10 | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 2004 | Marked ten years since the UNFCCC entered into force; opened discussion on a post-2012 mechanism. |
| COP11 | Montreal, Canada | 2005 | First meeting of the Kyoto Protocol parties (CMP1). Approved the carbon market and Clean Development Mechanism rules. |
| COP12 | Nairobi, Kenya | 2006 | First COP hosted in Africa; focus on adaptation financing for developing nations. |
| COP13 | Bali, Indonesia | 2007 | Adopted the Bali Roadmap, a timetable for negotiating Kyoto's successor, including developing countries for the first time. |
| COP14 | Poznań, Poland | 2008 | Continued negotiation on the post-2012 agreement ahead of Copenhagen. |
| COP15 | Copenhagen, Denmark | 2009 | Produced the non-binding Copenhagen Accord: the 2°C warming limit and a pledge toward $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries. |
| COP16 | Cancún, Mexico | 2010 | The Cancún Agreements formalised the Copenhagen pledges and created the Green Climate Fund. |
| COP17 | Durban, South Africa | 2011 | Launched the Durban Platform, the process that eventually produced the Paris Agreement. |
| COP18 | Doha, Qatar | 2012 | The Doha Amendment extended the Kyoto Protocol's commitment period to 2020. |
| COP19 | Warsaw, Poland | 2013 | Established the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage. |
| COP20 | Lima, Peru | 2014 | The Lima Call for Climate Action set the groundwork for countries to submit their own climate plans ahead of Paris. |
| COP21 | Paris, France | 2015 | The Paris Agreement adopted: hold warming well below 2°C, pursue efforts toward 1.5°C. The single most consequential COP outcome to date. |
| COP22 | Marrakesh, Morocco | 2016 | Focused on turning the Paris Agreement's principles into implementation detail. |
| COP23 | Bonn, Germany (presided by Fiji) | 2017 | First COP presided over by a small island state, spotlighting climate vulnerability. |
| COP24 | Katowice, Poland | 2018 | Adopted the Katowice Rulebook, the detailed implementation guidelines for the Paris Agreement. |
| COP25 | Madrid, Spain | 2019 | Focused on Paris Agreement Article 6 (carbon markets); talks on the rules continued without full resolution. |
| COP26 | Glasgow, UK | 2021 | Delayed a year by COVID-19. Produced the Glasgow Climate Pact and a wave of new national net-zero commitments, including India's 2070 target. |
| COP27 | Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt | 2022 | Established the dedicated Loss and Damage Fund for climate-vulnerable countries. |
| COP28 | Dubai, UAE | 2023 | First Global Stocktake completed. Countries agreed, for the first time, to "transition away" from fossil fuels. |
| COP29 | Baku, Azerbaijan | 2024 | Agreed a new climate finance goal: at least $300 billion a year from developed countries by 2035. Article 6 carbon market mechanisms became fully operational. |
| COP30 | Belém, Brazil | 2025 | First COP held in the Amazon region. Agreement to triple adaptation finance for developing nations and strengthen support for the clean-energy transition workforce. |
Source: United Nations, UN Climate Change Conferences and the UNFCCC's official past conferences record. COP31 (Turkey, 2026) and COP32 (Ethiopia, 2027) have been announced as future hosts but not yet held at time of writing.
The global climate target milestones, in one place
These get cited constantly, and rarely with a source attached. Here they are, with one.
The interim NDC checkpoint
The Paris Agreement asks every country to submit a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), its own emissions-reduction target, reviewed and strengthened roughly every five years. 2030 is the most common interim checkpoint countries have set inside their current NDCs, though the specific reduction percentage varies by country. Source: UNFCCC, The Paris Agreement.
India's "Viksit Bharat" development goal
2047 marks 100 years since India's independence. The Indian government's "Viksit Bharat" (Developed India) vision targets this year as a broad economic development milestone, not a specific climate or emissions target. It's frequently mentioned alongside India's climate commitments but is a distinct goal. Source: Government of India.
The global default net-zero horizon
2050 is the most common target year in corporate and national net-zero commitments worldwide, and the horizon the Paris Agreement's well-below-2°C pathway is generally modelled against. Not a single binding global deadline, more a convention nearly everyone has converged on. Source: IPCC, Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C.
India's national net-zero target
India announced a national target of net-zero emissions by 2070 at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, twenty years later than the 2050 default most developed nations have set, reflecting India's development-stage argument that its emissions trajectory can't mirror countries that industrialised a century earlier. Source: UNFCCC, COP26 outcomes.
The pattern worth noticing: the further out a target sits, the less binding it usually is. 2030 NDCs carry real reporting obligations attached. 2050 and 2070 net-zero targets are directional commitments with far less enforcement machinery behind them today, which is exactly why the interim 2030 checkpoints matter more than the year most people quote.
Abbreviations used on this page
COP: Conference of the Parties · UNFCCC: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change · NDC: Nationally Determined Contribution · CMP: Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol · IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change