by Benito Müller with Jen Allan

OCP/ecbi has forz some time been working on future Arrangements for Inter-governmental Meetings under the UNFCCC, proposing, as indicated in the sub-title of the 2021 Quo Vadis COP? Report that they should become “Settled and Fit for Purpose” (i.e. settled in Bonn with a focus on implementation). Since then, a number of OCP/ecbi publications have followed up on these ideas, among them a 2025 Blog Post “Good COP? Bad COP? Time to reform COP!” (reflecting on COP28 in Dubai) followed in the same year by an Update of the 2021 Report, and (in 2025) a Blog Post on Quo Vadis COP.31? and a Discussion Note on Reimagining COPs and Climate Weeks.

In the course of this work it has become clear that there is a need for clarity on terminology. For example, the term ‘COP’, as acronym of ‘Conference of the Parties’, in the context of the multilateral climate change regime strictly speaking refers to a particular multilateral body, namely the Governing Body (GB) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in the same way in which ‘CMP’ and ‘CMA’ designate the governing bodies of the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, respectively. Apart from Governing Bodies, the multilateral climate change regime under the UNFCCC also has ‘Subsidiary Bodies’ (SBs) — usually serving all UNFCCC Governing Bodies — such as the ‘Subsidiary Body for Implementation‘ (SBI) and theSubsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice’ (SBSTA)

The plural ‘COPs’ is used to refer to annual events held under the aegis of the COP and the annual COP Presidencies, beginning (COP.1) in Berlin 1995. COP.30 is being held in November 2025 in Belém/Brazil, in conjunction with sessions of all the other UNFCCC bodies mentioned above (CMP.20, CMA.7, SBI.63, SBSTA.63).

Over time, COPs have evolved into mega-events, not only with respect to their exponentially growing number of participants (Fig. 1), but also in the growing number of associated activities. The 2021 Report divided these into a ‘triad’ of categories: ‘Negotiations’, ‘Summits’ and ‘Expos’, with ‘Negotiations’ used as a short form for ‘Sessions of the Governing (and Subsidiary) Bodies of the multilateral climate change regime’.

Originally, the focus of these Sessions was indeed on negotiating, in particular negotiating international treaties. But they were never just negotiations. They also included ‘mandated events’, and indeed ‘side events’ in the ‘Blue Zone’ where access is controlled by the UNFCCC Secretariat, by contrast to the ‘Green Zone’ where access is controlled by the host country/COP Presidency.

Moreover, all the Blue Zone events during the annual Sessions (other than those in country offices and/or pavilions) were originally managed by the Secretariat. However, over time, the number of pavilions proliferated (see figure below) with the effect that arguably only a small share of Blue Zone side events are under the control of the Secretariat. The 2021 Report Triad-classification (see Box below) included these Blue Zone ‘pavilion events’ explicitly in the ‘COP Expo’ (together with the Green Zone events), as “the pavilion space is not intended as a part of the formal intergovernmental process. Events hosted in pavilions are not part of the official COP programme.”[UNFCCC]

As regards to the nature of the rest of the COP Session activities it has become clear – and will be addressed in a  forthcoming ecbi Report by Stefan Ruchti and Paul Watkinson on Shaping the Sessions to be Fit for Purpose – that these Sessions should be used less for negotiations and more as a forum to exchange experiences between (governmental) implementation practitioners. In that context, it is therefore more appropriate to simply use the term ‘(COP) Session’ rather than ‘Negotiations’ for the first element of the Triad.

In sum the propsal here is the following evolution from the original ‘Triad-terminology’ (see Box 1 below):

• ‘UNFCCC Sessions’ (‘Sessions’) is to be used to refer to the activities organised by the UNFCCC Secretariat (including negotiations, mandated events, side events) usually organised in the Blue Zone;
• ‘COP Presidency Summits’ (‘COP Summits’) for the meetings of Heads of Government and State
• ‘COP Presidency Expos’: the (mega-COP) activities not covered by the above, such as the Green Zone activities, the pavilion activities etc.