Another COP season has drawn to a close. Belém has passed the baton to COP31 in Antalya, with Addis Ababa next in line, while COP17 in Yerevan sought to move the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework from ambition to action. Agreements were reached, declarations were signed, and delegations returned home. But what has actually changed?

This session offers an open and candid discussion of what took place in the negotiating rooms. We will begin with the key outcomes: the Brazil–Antalya–Addis roadmap, the persistent gap between biodiversity commitments and their implementation, and the state of climate diplomacy at a time when multilateralism is under strain and an unprecedented El Niño is causing severe disruption for the world’s most vulnerable communities.

We will then take a more critical perspective, examining COPs as spaces that produce their own legitimacy. In doing so, they frame “climate” and “biodiversity” as neat, negotiable objects, while shaping who has a seat at the table, whose knowledge is recognised, and who ultimately benefits. What would meaningful accountability look like? And how can those too often pushed to the margins, including Indigenous peoples, frontline communities, youth, and the Global South, reclaim agency and invoke meaningful change in spaces that were not designed for them?

We invite you to bring your questions, concerns and hopes. Consensus may be easy to reach; justice is far harder to deliver. In this session, we ask what it will take to bridge the gap between the two.