Thousands of negotiators, policymakers, researchers, journalists and campaigners have been descending on Madrid over recent days for a fortnight of UN climate negotiations at the 25th Conference of the Parties (COP25).
The shifting location of this year’s principal international climate talks has played havoc with travel plans. Brazil originally won the bid to host the talks in 2018, but withdrew its offer just two months later following the election of new president Jair Bolsonaro.
Chile subsequently offered its capital Santiago as the host city, which was confirmed in March this year. However, less than five weeks before COP25 was to begin, the Chilean government pulled out as hosts following a period of civil unrest in the city.
At the last minute, Spain stepped in, saying it could host the event in Madrid. And at remarkable speed, the city has organised a fully fledged climate summit in just a few weeks.
So, how many delegates have travelled to these nomadic negotiations? And which countries have they come from? This Carbon Brief analysis reveals all.
According to the provisional list (pdf) published by the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), there is a grand total of 26,706 participants registered for COP25.
The country with the most delegates is, by some distance, Côte d’Ivoire with 348. The West African nation also brought the largest delegation to COP23 in Bonn in 2017 with 492 participants and the fourth largest to COP24 in Katowice in 2018, with 208.
Côte d’Ivoire’s delegation is more than 50 people larger than the second placed country, which is the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) with 293. The DRC also had the second largest number of delegates at COP24 (with 237) and the third largest at COP23 (340).
Making up the rest of the Top 5 this year is Spain (with 172 delegates), Brazil (168) and the Congo (165). The size of Spain’s delegation is almost four times as large as in recent years, no doubt reflecting their late entry as hosts. Indeed, while Chile still holds the presidency of the COP25, Spain is reported as wielding more influence over the talks.
Spain is not alone in bringing a much larger delegation this year. Chile’s 136-strong delegation is many times larger than in COP24 (31) and COP23 (26), while Bangladesh, Uganda and the Dominican Republic all have delegations around twice the size as at COP24.
Despite the United States’ recent decision to start the formal process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, its delegation for COP25 (78 people) is much larger than at COP24 (48) and its largest since the Paris COP itself in 2015 (124).
In Europe, the UK’s (48 people) is similar in size to last year’s (52), despite the fact that the UK is set to host COP26 in Glasgow next November. Both France and Germany (124 and 102 people, respectively) have smaller delegations than last year (188 and 153, respectively). The European Union’s delegation (125) is around 40 people larger than at COP24.
The biggest drop in delegation size comes from Guinea, with a mere 159 people compared to a table-topping 406 at COP24. Unsurprisingly, Poland’s delegation (38) is also much smaller compared to last year when they were COP hosts (211). And there are two parties which do not have any delegates on the UNFCCC list this year Bolivia and San Marino.
Carbon Brief Ltd