The Conferences of the Parties (COPs) are the working sessions of the country Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Each country sends a delegation of government officials or their proxies who are responsible for advancing the commitments signed and adopted by the Parties (that is, the countries). Unfortunately, Global North country delegations are funded by businesses, corporations, and unions across the oil, finance, environmental services, and energy sectors, and therefore represent their interests. Similarly, many officials seek to advance their own national commercial agendas. Because of this, the COPs neither represent nor promote environmental interests nor acknowledge the causes of climate change as a global problem. Rather, they impose policies for green capitalism and carbon offsets through lobbying, corruption, and coercion.
COPs are simply business summits; keeping oil in the ground and the people’s real solutions are never discussed. That’s why, since the earliest official negotiations, organizers have held a parallel People’s Summit, where victims of climate disasters and communities resisting false solutions voice their real solutions to global warming.
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