On 15 June, the UNFCCC Secretariat at the UN Campus in Bonn convened an informal discussion on the future of COPs and climate multilateralism, with practical reforms to strengthen the implementation role of the UN climate regime at the centre of the discussions.
The meeting brought together a small group of experts and thought leaders to reflect on how the UNFCCC process can remain effective as it transitions from negotiating agreements to supporting their implementation.
ecbi Director Benito Müller presented new analysis showing that participation at UNFCCC conferences has expanded dramatically following major treaty negotiations, with attendance at subsequent COPs roughly doubling after milestones such as Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Paris. The analysis suggested that growing participation by heads of state and senior officials may be contributing to wider attendance growth across governments and stakeholder groups. Müller argued that the increasing size and complexity of COPs raises concerns about affordability, accessibility, and effectiveness. Müller proposed greater separation between formal negotiations, political summits, and stakeholder engagement activities, suggesting that negotiations could potentially be conducted in smaller, more focused settings while preserving opportunities for political engagement and broader participation through separate events.
A key contribution came from Paul Watkinson and Stefan Ruchti-Crowley, who presented findings from the recent ecbi paper Quo Vadis COP? Reforming the UNFCCC Sessions to Improve Negotiations and Support Implementation. Their presentation focused on practical reforms that could improve the effectiveness of the UNFCCC process without altering its institutional architecture, mandates, or consensus-based decision-making model. They argued that while the UN climate regime has achieved major milestones—including the adoption of landmark agreements and detailed rulebooks—the process now faces a growing disconnect between what countries need to implement climate action and what the current system is designed to deliver.
They identified four main challenges: the continued dominance of negotiations within the process; increasingly overloaded agendas; insufficient integration of practitioners and implementers into formal discussions; and institutional structures that do not adequately support implementation and learning.
To address these challenges, the presentation outlined a reform “toolbox” organised around four areas.
The first focused on improving agenda management through measures such as grouping agenda items under thematic pillars, removing obsolete items, concluding legacy workstreams, and streamlining procedural negotiations.
A second set of proposals aimed to improve the organisation of work through multi-year planning, better sequencing of activities across sessions, more effective use of intersessional periods, and a more strategic workload distribution throughout the year. The presenters noted that many such improvements could be pursued through leadership from COP Presidencies, Subsidiary Body Chairs, the Bureau, and the UNFCCC Secretariat, without requiring formal decisions by Parties.
A third area centred on reorienting the process towards implementation, including by encouraging Parties to appoint Heads of Implementation. The presenters argued that negotiated decisions should not be viewed as the sole measure of success and called for greater use of dialogue-based formats, stronger mechanisms for information-sharing and learning, and better utilisation of data generated through the Enhanced Transparency Framework. They suggested that much of the information already produced by the UNFCCC process remains underused despite its potential value for governments, investors, and practitioners.
The fourth area focuses on longer-term structural improvements, including: stronger engagement with non-Party stakeholders; deeper links with scientific institutions such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; enhanced dialogue on finance, technology and resilience; greater use of digital tools and artificial intelligence; stronger collaboration across the UN system and the Rio Conventions; and increased support for the UNFCCC Secretariat.
In the discussion that followed, participants broadly agreed that the UNFCCC process faces significant structural, procedural, and cultural challenges as it shifts from negotiating agreements to supporting their implementation. While views differed on specific reforms, there was consensus that practical improvements are available and many could be pursued within the existing institutional framework, without formal intergovernmental decisions.
A recurring theme was the question of who should drive reform. Participants observed that while some changes require agreement by Parties because they affect mandates and formal procedures, other changes could be initiated by the Secretariat, COP Presidencies, or presiding officers. The Bureau could also potentially play a stronger role in supporting reform efforts alongside the Executive Secretary. There was support for mapping reform proposals according to which actor is best placed to implement them.
Read also the recent article in Climate Home News that goes into more detail about the issues discussed at this meeting and in the ecbi paper on Reforming the UNFCCC Sessions to Improve Negotiations and Support Implementation
