Your FOMO Is Fueling 70,000-Person Climate Conferences. A Smarter COP Is Possible

Dubai, UAE, MMN Correspondent: Picture a single conference so large it functions like a two-week city. Presidents, ministers, negotiators, business leaders, campaigners, engineers, journalists, celebrities, and thousands of others arrive with one shared goal. Being seen at the UN climate conference has become a way of showing that climate change matters.

That sense of presence has a name: FOMO, the fear of missing out. And it is quietly reshaping the climate process.

In the 1990s, COPs were smaller, more technical. A few thousand participants made the journey. Even the Kyoto conference, which produced the first legally binding emissions agreement, welcomed fewer than 10,000 people. Then the pattern shifted. After each major treaty moment, the next COP doubled in size. COP21 in Paris drew about 30,000 people. COP26 in Glasgow topped 38,000. COP28 in Dubai registered more than 70,000.

Consider what those numbers reveal. At COP28, more than 42,000 Party badges went to official national delegations. Exactly 1,581 of those delegates also attended the technical negotiating session in Bonn five months earlier. This means fewer than 4% of Party delegates formed the core negotiating group. The rest of the impressive activity was an event around them.

That core community has stayed surprisingly steady. Across the five COPs since Paris, between 1,300 and 1,600 delegates consistently attended both the June meeting in Bonn and the annual COP. The negotiation engine was never a crowd. The mega-event grew around them while the negotiating core remained compact.

FOMO helps explain the expansion. When presidents and prime ministers started attending, ministers decided they needed to be present too. When minister numbers rose, national delegations expanded. Then businesses, investors, researchers, journalists, city leaders, and philanthropies made the same calculation. If the most important people in the climate world are gathering in one place, staying home feels like a missed opportunity. Each year, the size of the event becomes another reason to attend. Presence becomes a marker of relevance, and relevance is hard to ignore.

Today's COP is three separate events sharing a venue. Formal negotiations produce decisions under the Convention and the Paris Agreement. Political summits bring heads of state and government together for announcements and leadership. And the climate expo gives companies, cities, scientists, investors, and civil society a powerful platform to showcase solutions. Each function serves a valuable purpose. They were joined by tradition and convenience more than by necessity.

The current format creates practical questions. Hosting a mega-COP demands massive budgets, extensive security, and enough hotel rooms to accommodate a small city. Many climate vulnerable nations do not yet have those resources. Their voices, the voices with the most at stake, can struggle to find adequate space. Even for wealthy governments, the resources needed grow each year. This is an opportunity to rethink what a host nation really needs to provide.

Here is a clearer path. Routine meetings of the governing body could stay in Bonn, where the UN climate secretariat is based. Around 5,000 people are directly involved in the formal process. They would get a smaller, more practical environment. Political summits could happen separately, only when leaders need to offer direction. The climate expo could keep moving with the COP Presidency, giving the worlds of finance, innovation, cities, and communities a dedicated place to connect and build momentum. Each part would get the attention it deserves.

This approach would make participation stronger. Negotiators could work without fighting through security lines. Host nations would be able to say yes more often. Climate vulnerable countries would return to the table as hosts and agenda setters. Businesses and civil society would enjoy clearer visibility and more meaningful conversations. The formal talks, the political moment, and the solution showcase would each be measured by the results they create and the quality of the connections they make.

So what does this mean for you? If you follow climate conversations, your own attention matters. The massive annual gathering can capture your energy, and the quiet technical meetings often decide the details that make agreements real. Presence at a mega-event creates visibility. Meaningful participation creates progress. Both have value, and they support each other best when they have the space to do so.

Climate diplomacy is ready for a format that matches its purpose. A COP can be a focused negotiation, a meaningful political moment, and a dynamic innovation hub, each in its own ideal setting. The future of the climate process belongs to gatherings that make real change easier to find. The best measure of any COP is the speed of the global transition it supports.