BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 110 of 142

Correct — B, United Arab Emirates. COP28 — the twenty-eighth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — was held at Expo City Dubai in the United Arab Emirates from 30 November to 13 December 2023, under the presidency of Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber. Three things came out of it that are worth carrying with the venue. First, the final decision, known as the UAE Consensus, was the first in the history of the COP summits to mention explicitly the need to shift away from every type of fossil fuel — a sentence fought over line by line, and criticised afterwards for stopping short of a clear phase-out or phase-down commitment. Second, the loss and damage fund that had been agreed in principle at COP27 in Egypt was actually operationalised on the opening day, with pledges made immediately. Third, COP28 concluded the first Global Stocktake, the five-yearly assessment of collective progress towards the Paris goals that had been set up at COP26 in Glasgow. The venue sequence around it is the fastest way to keep the answer straight: Glasgow 2021, Sharm el-Sheikh 2022, Dubai 2023, Baku 2024, and Belém in Brazil from 10 to 21 November 2025. Once that chain is memorised, three of the four options here fall away on sight.

• (a)United Kingdom — The United Kingdom hosted COP26 at Glasgow in 2021 — the summit of the Glasgow Climate Pact and the phrase 'phase-down of unabated coal', and the meeting that created the Global Stocktake process COP28 later completed. Two COPs earlier, and the most likely wrong answer for a candidate who remembers one climate summit and its host.
• (c)Brazil — Brazil's turn came two years later: COP30 was held at Belém, on the edge of the Amazon, from 10 to 21 November 2025. Brazil's older claim on this subject is the 1992 Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro, where the UNFCCC itself was opened for signature — which is exactly why the country feels like a plausible host.
• (d)Italy — Italy has never hosted a COP; it was the United Kingdom's partner for the COP26 presidency and held the pre-summit meetings at Milan in 2021, which is the association the option is fishing for. A partnership in the presidency is not the same as hosting the conference.

The UNFCCC was opened for signature at the UN Conference on Environment and Development at Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and its parties have met almost every year since 1995 as the Conference of the Parties — the COP. Each meeting is numbered and hosted by a member country, and the host provides the president of the session, which is why the presidency and the venue are always asked together. The landmark COPs are worth learning as a list: COP3 at Kyoto in 1997 produced the Kyoto Protocol with its binding targets for developed countries and its flexible mechanisms including the Clean Development Mechanism; COP21 at Paris in 2015 produced the Paris Agreement, with nationally determined contributions and the goal of holding warming well below 2 degrees Celsius; COP26 at Glasgow in 2021 produced the Glasgow Climate Pact and set up the Global Stocktake; COP27 at Sharm el-Sheikh in 2022 agreed to create a loss and damage fund; and COP28 at Dubai in 2023 operationalised that fund and delivered the first stocktake. India has hosted the meeting once, COP8 at New Delhi in 2002.

Questions on the COPs are almost always about venue, year and one headline outcome, so build the table with three columns and revise it rather than reading news reports twice. The discriminating habit is to pair each recent COP with the one phrase it is remembered for: Glasgow with the phase-down of unabated coal, Sharm el-Sheikh with the loss and damage fund agreed, Dubai with the UAE Consensus and the first Global Stocktake, Baku with climate finance. That pairing also protects against a subtler trap: several countries are associated with climate diplomacy without having hosted a COP, and Italy is the example on this page. Note too that a state exam will ask the host country while UPSC will ask what the meeting decided or which instrument came from which forum, so the same table has to be learnt from both ends. Finally, keep the parent treaty distinct from its offspring — the UNFCCC is the convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement are instruments under it, and the Montreal Protocol belongs to a different regime altogether, ozone depletion.

• COP28 was held at Expo City Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 30 November to 13 December 2023, with Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber as president
• Its final decision, the UAE Consensus, was the first COP outcome to state explicitly the need to shift away from every type of fossil fuel
• The loss and damage fund agreed at COP27 (Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, 2022) was operationalised on the first day of COP28
• COP28 concluded the first Global Stocktake, the five-yearly review of collective progress established at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 and due to be repeated every five years
• Recent hosts in order: Glasgow 2021 (UK), Sharm el-Sheikh 2022 (Egypt), Dubai 2023 (UAE), Baku 2024 (Azerbaijan), Belém 2025 (Brazil, 10–21 November)
• The UNFCCC itself was opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992; India hosted COP8 at New Delhi in 2002

• Confusing the host of COP26 (United Kingdom) with the host of COP28; the Glasgow summit is the one most candidates remember
• Mixing the Montreal Protocol into a climate answer — it deals with ozone-depleting substances, not greenhouse gases
• Assuming a country associated with a climate landmark has hosted a COP; Italy partnered the COP26 presidency without hosting the conference

BPSC asks the host country or the host city and expects a single recall, usually of the most recent one or two summits before the paper. UPSC asks what the forum produced — where the UNFCCC was drawn up, which protocol created carbon credits, which mechanism funds emission-reduction projects in developing countries — so the same table has to carry outcomes, not just venues.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The 'loss and damage' fund for climate-vulnerable countries was agreed in principle at which conference ?

  • (a)COP26, Glasgow, 2021
  • (b)COP27, Sharm el-Sheikh, 2022
  • (c)COP28, Dubai, 2023
  • (d)COP29, Baku, 2024

  Answer(b) COP27, Sharm el-Sheikh, 2022 — the decision to establish the fund was taken there, and it was operationalised on the opening day of COP28 at Dubai the following year.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Paris Agreement on climate change was adopted at which session of the Conference of the Parties ?

  • (a)COP15, Copenhagen
  • (b)COP17, Durban
  • (c)COP21, Paris
  • (d)COP24, Katowice

  Answer(c) COP21, Paris — adopted in December 2015, it introduced nationally determined contributions and the goal of holding the rise in global temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius.