Bigger share of COP29 badges for Global South NGOs to push ‘more diverse voices’, upsets rich-country groups

The UN climate change body said this week it is giving a larger share of attendance badges for COP29 to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from developing countries in a bid for more diverse voices at the annual climate summit.

The UNFCCC has tweaked the algorithm used to allocate badges to observer groups this year in response to requests from governments to address a long-standing imbalance in the global representation of participants from civil society, academia and indigenous communities.

Attendees from rich industrialised countries have historically formed the biggest contingent of observers at the COP climate summits. Half of all observers at COP28 in Dubai last year hailed from a bloc of Western European nations, the US, Canada and Australia, even though countries in that group represent only 12% of the world’s population.

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UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell wrote this week in a foreword to a handbook for observers that “we need the COP process and participation to reflect the fact that the climate crisis is hitting communities in every part of the world”.

Campaigners in the Global South have welcomed the reforms, while some green groups in the Global North quietly expressed surprise and disappointment over hefty cuts to their allocated quotas and the way the changes have been implemented.

Mohamed Adow, director of Nairobi-based think-tank Power Shift Africa, said “finally we are getting a fairer distribution of observer badges”.

“It’s only right that people from countries that are most vulnerable to the climate crisis are able to attend the meetings that are supposed to address their needs,” he added. “For too long, the vast majority of COP badges have been held by people from a small part of the world but with disproportionately high emissions.”