While 84,000 delegates attended COP28 in Dubai, just 40,000-50,000 are expected at COP29 in Baku and COP30 in Belém
UN climate chief Simon Stiell has said he hopes to see fewer people attend the annual COP climate negotiations after participants at COP28 in Dubai last December hit a record high of nearly 84,000.
Stiell said this month that he personally “would certainly like to see future COPs reduce in size”, telling an audience at London’s Chatham House think-tank that “bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better”.
In Dubai, where the 2023 summit was held from November 30 to December 13, the Expo City site was so large that important delegates were ferried around on golf buggies while electric scooters were available to get around the public area, known as the Green Zone.
“Size does not necessarily translate to the quality of outcomes,” Stiell said in London, noting that the UN climate change secretariat (UNFCCC) is discussing the issue with the hosts of COP29 in Azerbaijan this year and COP30 next year in Brazil.
Last week, Climate Home reporters visited the COP29 host city of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan – on a tour sponsored by the COP29 presidency – and also the location of COP30, the Brazilian Amazon city of Belém, to see how preparations are going for the November 2024 and 2025 gatherings.
Azerbaijan’s government is expecting just 40,000 people to come to the Baku Olympic Stadium for the talks this year, while Belém’s remoteness, congested roads and lack of hotels are likely to substantially limit how many people can attend the “Amazon COP”.
The number of people attending COPs has shot up in recent years. Close to 40,000 people went to COP26 in Glasgow, around 50,000 were in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for COP27 and nearly 84,000 headed to Dubai last year. But most of the 28 COPs held since 1995 have been attended by fewer than 10,000 people.
Just over half of last year’s participants belonged to government delegations, with most of the rest comprising staff working at the conference or activists from non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
In practice, the boundaries of these categories are blurred though, as government delegations often include business representatives, NGO employees, journalists and others.
Baku’s Olympic Stadium
The government of Azerbaijan will host COP29 in the country’s Caspian seaside capital, Baku. A member of the organising committee told Climate Home they are expecting around 40,000 people.
The government has not had much time to prepare, as it was only tasked with the presidency last November at COP28 after Eastern Europe’s geopolitical divisions delayed the decision on which country would host the summit.
But it already has a venue: the Olympic Stadium on the outskirts of Baku. According to state media, COP29 chief operations officer Narmin Jarchalova said temporary structures will be built around the stadium to accommodate the negotiations and side events.