Network Drivers of Organizational Diversity and Participation Across 30 Years of International Climate Change Negotiations

International efforts to negotiate a global solution to climate change have seen an ever-growing number of governmental, business, and nonprofit organization participants. Such efforts have primarily transpired at the Conferences of the Parties (COPs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its precursor – now encompassing over 30 years of formal meetings. Despite this extensive history, we know surprisingly little about the evolving diversity of the UNFCCC COPs’ participating organizations. In treating the extent and diversity of organizations’ UNFCCC COP attendance patterns as two key climate change (cooperation) outcomes, this study evaluates the effects of cross-organization influence networks over time. It does so with the aid of individual attendee-level data for the UNFCCC and its precursor, 1991–2024. These data include over 25,000 unique attending organizations with annual information on organization name and type, affiliated individuals, and those individuals’ details. These features enable new understandings of organizational attendance – as well as the identification of cross-organizational ties at the meeting level. We link organizations based upon attendees’ affiliations. We then demonstrate that COP attendees’ gender and organizational diversity have been increasing over the course of global climate negotiations. Next, we statistically evaluate how cross-organization influences networks and affects both processes. This identifies the role of influence networks in helping to reinforce and propagate gender and organizational diversity among attendees within climate change negotiations over time. In these manners, this study provides a nuanced understanding of organizational participation and diversity across the UNFCCC and its precursor forum.