A group of former leaders and climate experts said the annual UN COP climate talks were no longer fit for purpose and needed to be reformed, publishing a critical open letter mid-wa

The next major United Nations meeting on climate change, known as COP29, is about to get underway in Baku, Azerbaijan. These annual meetings are the key international summits as the world attempts to address the unfolding climate crisis.

A group of high-level climate diplomats — including Christiana Figueres, who led the UN climate talks in Paris in 2015 — released an open letter Friday in the midst of COP29 calling for urgent reform of the summit process.

The United Nations’ Conference of Parties (Cop) climate summits are “no longer fit for purpose” and require an urgent overhaul, climate experts and former UN chiefs have said.