COP

Conference of the Parties, countries who are signatories to the UN Climate Change Convention.

With the entry into force of the Climate Change Convention in 1994, representatives of the signatory countries started to meet annually at the Conferences of the Parties to discuss the progress of the implementation of the treaty and to continue discussions on how best to deal with climate change and environmental issues – in this case, party is the same as country.

The COP is the ‘supreme moment’ of the Climate Change Convention, and the procedures adopted by its components and internal bodies are governed by written laws.