The 197 countries and the European Union in attendance almost did not reach a consensus on the final statement at the 28th Conference of Parties – or COP28 – which ended on December 12 in the United Arab Emirates. Organised by the United Nations to build international consensus on how to tackle climate change, this was the first year that the conference planned to have a global stocktake to account for how far countries have progressed in achieving targets set in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
