The call to overhaul the Cop process is inevitable, given the frustrations with this year’s underwhelming conference in Baku (Cop summits ‘no longer fit for purpose’, say leading climate policy experts, 15 November). Yet restricting host nations or abandoning the inclusive framework of the Cop summits risks undermining the very cooperation required to combat climate change.
The suggestion to exclude petrostates as hosts risks alienating critical players in the energy transition. The world’s largest oil and gas producers have to be convinced – or forced – to change, and Cop summits without them would have a huge elephant in the room and risk being irrelevant from the start.
