AGU is a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in Earth and space sciences. This research includes studying deep into the planet’s core, our worldwide water cycle, atmospheric circulation, out to our planetary neighbors, and even newly discovered worlds far outside our solar system. The Earth and space sciences teach us how our world works, give us insight into environmental hazards and disasters, and reveal the ways in which humans are damaging our natural systems. Our science leads us to understanding our changing world and provides the foundation for solutions that create a thriving and sustainable future.

Through broad and inclusive partnerships, AGU aims to advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased, and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C., and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct.

COP is the formal annual meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), also called the Conference of the Parties, or COP. The first meeting, or COP1, was held in 1995 in Berlin, Germany, to assess progress towards halting climate change. In early meetings, the parties negotiated the Kyoto Protocol and then measured progress by the signatories. More recently, COP meetings were used to negotiate the Paris Agreement.

Though the primary attention for COP is on the international negotiations, the meeting is also attended by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and individuals who bring critical expertise on climate change and its impacts. These parties typically organize within pavilions that provide a topical focus for bilateral meetings, educational opportunities, and to seek collaborative partners. For example, at COP27, AGU co-hosted the Ocean Pavilion with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and several other leading scientific organizations.

COP28 will be held from 30 November to 12 December 2023 in Dubai, UAE. This conference is particularly important because the parties will be executing the first global stocktake, an assessment of progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. The Dubai meeting will be the first time since the Agreement was enacted in Paris at COP21 that the parties will have to revise their promised climate action.

The Montreal Protocol issues its quadrennial report this year, which will also take stage at COP28, and for the first time it will include a section on a type of climate intervention called solar radiation management, or SRM. Given that the world is not on track to meet its Paris Agreement goals, this might be a moment where the parties at COP28 might begin to seriously consider climate intervention methods.

COP is where decisions are made that will have world-changing impact. The climate goals that our government leaders decide on and the actions each country will take to meet them must be based on rigorously tested and ethical scientific research.

AGU is the largest Earth and space science association, composed of the world’s leading experts in climate science and its impacts on our environment and to our society. AGU’s membership is represented in more than 140 countries. Research published in AGU journals is widely cited in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Our leadership in open science and community science is critical in advancing policy priorities and solutions that underpin the discussions held at COP. It is our obligation to ensure our science is heard by the people who need this information the most.

AGU is aware of the immensely troubling facts and reporting surrounding COP28 and its president, who is the chief executive of the UAE’s state oil company. We also understand that sending a delegation to attend COP28 in person is expensive and carbon intensive.

However, it is of the utmost importance that the scientists that AGU represents—the world’s leading experts on climate change and its impacts on health and the environment—reach the delegations making decisions about our future at COP28. We believe it would be an abdication of AGU's responsibility to our membership to not take every opportunity to get this critical science heard and to insist on urgent action.

AGU’s delegation is led by Lisa J. Graumlich, AGU President, and Janice Lachance, AGU’s Interim Executive Director and CEO. The delegation also includes Mark Shimamoto, Vice President of Global Outreach Programs, AGU.