Accompanying the negotiation process of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is increasingly relevant for non-state organizations. But what are the options? One of them is observer status at the Conferences of the Parties on Climate, the COPs, which allows organizations to access many of the negotiation rooms and to follow closely the declarations made by the countries. In addition, there is the possibility of submitting official statements to the negotiation processes.
The importance of this movement gained more prominence especially after the negotiations for the Paris Agreement, in which the need for the active participation of organized civil society and the business sector became evident for the construction of innovative solutions to meet the challenge of limiting the increase of the average temperature of the planet well below 2 °C, in relation to the pre-industrial period, with efforts not to exceed 1.5 °C.
However, there is not much time: the deadline for registering organizations as observers ends in August – and is only valid for COP27, in 2022.