From 11-22 November 2024, nearly 200 world leaders and 30,000 delegates will come together in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, to coordinate global climate action for the year ahead at the latest UN Climate Change Convention Conference of the Parties (COP). We at UCL Open Environment, an open access and open science journal, reflect on some of the articles that have published in the journal’s UNFCCC/COP thematic collection.

This collection provides researchers, academics and professionals the opportunity to publish open access scholarly and research articles, for free, about key topics covered at COP. Whether focused on The Paris Agreement, Glasgow Climate Pact or the UN led Early Warnings for All Initiative, all are welcome. In this blog we highlight a series of articles from the UCL (University College London, UK) delegation team that attended COP and whom are playing a critical role to providing evidence based research to decision-makers to implement effective climate change policies.

In 'A short history of the successes and failures of the international climate change negotiations’ the authors helpfully remind us in their review of the timeline and major events of the past COP meetings, tracing key achievements but also setbacks. Here, they analyse major agreements, including the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement, assessing how political, economic, and social challenges have influenced progress and emphasise the importance of collaboration and accountability for future climate policy to effectively address a warming world due to an increasing amount of anthropogenic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Addressing the large carbon footprint of a warming world is a major focus and one which takes centre stage at many scientific and scholarly conferences across world. COP29 in Baku is no different. Since 2022, UCL’s delegation have each year provided articles focusing on UCL’s own carbon footprint to calculate and weigh up the benefits of certain modes of transport. In the first of these articles titled ‘Location, location, location: A carbon footprint calculator for transparent travel to COP27’, the research group from UCL discuss how they calculate carbon emissions associated with travel to the COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, climate conference, emphasising the need for transparency in environmental impact assessments for event-related travel and aims to inform sustainable travel choices by highlighting carbon footprints linked to various transportation options.

Building on from this, in ‘Navigating the Climate Conferences: Comparing the Carbon Footprint of Private Jet Travel and Other Modes of Transport to COP28’ the authors looked at private jet travel to COP28 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, which, at the time, were expected to generate nine times more the emissions of commercial flights and much more than public transport (like train or bus travel), that are in stark contrast with the climate goals of these events.

Now, in their latest update, for COP29, ‘The Road to Baku: The Carbon Cost of Getting to COP29 in Azerbaijan’ provides updated data and analysis on the travel options from the United Kingdom to Baku, highlighting the carbon cost of such travel. Ultimately, the research in these series of articles aims to encourage greater levels of transparency on travel choices and emissions to inform positive and sustainable travel policies.

Read more about the collection including how to contribute, by visiting https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/ucloe/collections/455/

About UCL Open Environment

UCL Open Environment is a fully non-commercial, Open Science scholarly journal, publishing high impact, multi-disciplinary research, on real world environmental issues, with the overall aim of benefitting humanity. Published by UCL Press (University College London, UK), submission is open to anyone at any institution and from anywhere in the world. Unlike typical, single disciplinary journals, UCL Open Environment is the only dedicated multi-disciplinary environmental Open Science journal that publishes broadly across all environment-related subjects.

Read more about the journal at https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/ucloe

Read more about multidisciplinary research and publishing with the journal at https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/ucloe/news/3

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