The yearly Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have become real “mega-events”, attracting tens of thousands of participants each year. The last COP, COP29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November 2024, for example, was attended by just under 30,000 participants, about half of whom represented states (note that these numbers exclude so-called “overflow” participants). Some states had particularly large delegations: the host country Azerbaijan thus registered 1130 participants, while Brazil, host of COP30, had 649 delegates on site, and Russia, 757. At the other end of the spectrum, Armenia, Azerbaijan’s long-time “enemy”, was completely absent, while Nicaragua had a delegation of only two.

Such small delegations are clearly at a disadvantage and struggle to engage meaningfully in negotiations as complex as the climate COPs. Our study explores delegation size from a procedural justice perspective, whereby we combine empirical negotiation research and normative political philosophy – research strands that rarely intersect.

Based on the number of meetings taking place in parallel and the breadth of the climate agenda, we estimate that at least 15 delegates are required to be able to participate fully in climate negotiations. Actual delegation size is below that threshold for many countries. Since the 2015 Paris COP, more than half of all countries have had a delegation of 15 or less at least once.

While we acknowledge the limitations of our illustrative analysis, the data suggests that the negotiations are procedurally unjust: many countries, especially those with small populations, are under-represented in climate negotiations. We therefore discuss three measures that could help improve negotiations from a procedural justice perspective, thus contributing to ongoing discussions on how to make the COPs “fit for purpose”:

• First, providing more financial support to countries in need would allow them to send more delegates.
• Second, the very broad climate agenda could be trimmed and streamlined, so fewer meetings would take place in parallel, allowing even small(er) delegations to participate.
• Third, while controversial and unrealistic at this point, a limit on delegation size should at least be considered. Such a limit would not only make the negotiation process more equitable but would also in general make the COPs more manageable and less resource intensive.

Procedural justice and (in)equitable participation in climate negotiations by Carola Klöck (Sciences Po, Paris, France), Christian Baatz (Kiel University, Kiel, Germany), Nils Wendler (Kiel University, Kiel, Germany) is part of the UCL Open Environment UNFCCC/COP collection and published in UCL Open Environment, volume 7.

UNFCCC UCLOE climate negotiation climate justice delegation size procedural justice UCL Open Environment