Are Climate Negotiations Making Any Progress?

This paper provides a historical overview of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties meetings and reviews the major outcomes of the meetings up to the most recent, which took place in Dubai. We describe how climate negotiations, agreements and policies have evolved, summarise the main points reached, and highlight the key concerns of low-income countries relating to distribution and fairness — a key obstacle for many countries. We then discuss the progress made to date to address fairness issues and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In particular, we discuss the Just Energy Transition Partnerships and the loss and damage initiatives, which provide funds to developing countries to finance the switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy and to compensate for climate damages, respectively.