COP28 crowds: a dangerous distraction or sign of success?

By Valerie Volcovici

Flashy country pavilions, corporate-sponsored cocktail parties and a smorgasbord of side events have turned the annual UN climate summit into what some say is a trade show or circus.

In this year’s gleaming host city of Dubai, billboards advertise the benefits of wind energy, climate ambition and Exxon Mobil’s carbon capture projects.

And with a record 84,000 registered attendees, this year’s Conference of the Parties, or COP28, is a far cry from the first in Berlin in 1995...