About COP23


This year, the University of Maine is sending its inaugural delegation to a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP).

The UNFCCC was established in 1992 under the Rio Convention, and since that time it has served as the major framework under which the world has negotiated towards a plan for climate change action at the international level.

This year is the 23rd meeting of the international community under this convention making it COP23. Each year, the COPs rotate to a different region of the world, and this year is the Asia/Pacific's turn to host the international climate change negotiations, so the presidency of the COP is Fiji. However, Fiji decided that it would prefer to host its COP at the Secretariat, or the "home base" of the UNFCCC, instead of in Fiji because of the number of delegates who attend the conference and the resources needed to run the conference. So, we will be attending the Fiji COP in Bonn, Germany from November 6-November 17, 2017.

The COPs have multiple different flows of activities taking place over the two week meeting including:

  • Official negotiations- Meetings held between country delegates to negotiate plans or actions on a particular topics. Topics include mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, finance, and science & technology.
  • Side events- These are programs organized by countries, NGOs, and/or the UNFCCC secretariat for the purposes of sharing knowledge on climate change related topics. There are hundreds of side events over the two week conference, and they provide opportunities for sharing of information and networking across organizations. 
  • Press conferences- Any entity at the COP can hold a press conference which is set up to be broadcasted outside of the UNFCCC walls. It is an opportunity for the press and other observers to ask questions of country delegations and other major players in the negotiations.
  • Exhibit hall- This is a space where delegations display information about their group or country. It presents an opportunity to seek out interactions with particular organizations. 
  • Other events- Many organizations take the COP as an opportunity to host events outside of the COP venue which supplement the above activities. These include Climate and Development Days, the Sustainable Innovation Forum, and this year it it include the US Climate Action Pavilion. 
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