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Tens of thousands of people from around the globe will gather next week for COP29, the annual UN climate summit, in Azerbaijan's capital of Baku.

But as each year’s summit has produced its own set of promises, plans and paperwork to chase, the rationale for these discussions can be hard to follow.

Here’s what you need to know about why COP, short for Conference of the Parties, matters:

Why do we have a yearly COP?

Because climate change will affect every country, regardless of whether it contributed to the problem, it demands global solutions that can address the diversity of needs across countries.

In signing the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that launched the global negotiations, the parties that agreed to it took pains to differentiate between the wealthy nations that caused the bulk of warming and poorer countries that suffer disproportionately from it.

Put another way, the talks are framed around the idea that the countries that benefited the most from industrializing should take the most responsibility for dealing with the warming that resulted.

Addressing that imbalance has become more difficult as developing countries’ economies have grown and rich nations juggle competing costs including war.

What can a yearly summit achieve?

The summit provides a place for countries to discuss solutions, including energy policies, financing schemes or funding needs.

Nearly every summit is also attended by world leaders, giving an important signal that their countries are committed to the UNFCCC goals. The leaders' presence also helps countries hold one another accountable for past promises.

Importantly, the exercise has seen countries counting and reporting their emissions and has helped move hundreds of billions of dollars in climate aid to developing nations.

By requiring decisions by consensus, the process also ensures strong global support for agreed actions, improving the chances these actions will be implemented.

But the pace of progress has been too slow to contain the rise in global temperatures. Since COP summits began in 1995, both emissions and temperatures have continued to rise, meaning the world is on track for extreme climate change.

Proponents of the UNFCCC process say there is no alternative for negotiating major socioeconomic changes to try to limit global warming.

What will we get out of COP29?

This year’s summit is hoping for a few headline agreements: a new annual climate finance target, a deal to get multilateral carbon credit markets working, and more aid money pledged for countries already hit by costly climate disasters.

Beyond that, negotiators will continue to work on technical agreements that build on work done at previous summits.

Outside the formal COP framework, groups of countries could launch their own initiatives or pledge funding for specific projects. Companies will likely announce commercial deals related to climate action, while financiers try to raise cash for climate investments.

What is Azerbaijan’s role in COP29?

Azerbaijan held the presidency of COP29 this year when the rotating COP presidency fell to Central and Eastern Europe.

Next year Brazil will serve as Latin America’s host for COP30.

As summit host, a country works the entire year to steer pre-summit negotiations and lobby other governments for ambitious action. This gives the presidency an important part in defining the summit’s priorities.

What else happens at a COP?

Beyond the country negotiations, the COP summit offers a chance for anyone to try to draw attention - or funding—to their cause.

Hundreds of side events see activists and scientists rubbing shoulders with industry lobbyists and banking heavyweights.

Public-facing conference stages host panel discussions on topics from ocean acidification to designing carbon offset projects.

An exhibition hall, dubbed the ‘Green Zone’, features discussions led by national delegations, non-profit organizations and corporations.

While some summits have seen big organized protests, such as the rally of thousands outside of COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, the last two conferences in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have allowed for protests only in designated, roped-off areas.

Azerbaijan, which also has banned public protests, will likely see little civic action outside of the high-security conference site.

Reuters

Kolkata: Sold by her family as a teenager, Zarin was beaten, drugged and repeatedly gang-raped—just one of many thousands of young women trafficked in India. Her home state of West Bengal—bordering Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal—is a key trafficking hub where more than 50,000 girls are missing, the highest figure in India, according to the latest national crime records.

Zarin, whose name has been changed, was sold to traffickers by her family after refusing an arranged marriage at the age of 16. “I said ‘no’, and told them I was too young,” Zarin, now 20, told AFP.

On a trip she thought was to visit her sister in the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, some 1,900 kilometers away, she was instead handed over to a man. Her captors frequently drugged her to knock her out, and it was only when she hid her drug-laced meal that she realized she was being sexually abused.

“I lay there, pretending to be unconscious... then I saw three or four men entering the room,” she said. “That is when I understood what had been happening to me.” She fought back that time, but was gang-raped in the days to come.

India’s interior ministry registered 2,250 cases of human trafficking in 2022, according to the most recent data, but the real figure is believed to be much higher. Many of the missing girls are trafficked through Kolkata, state capital of West Bengal and one of India’s biggest cities—some into forced labor, others into prostitution.

Zarin’s captors later sold her on—she believes for less than $3,500. “They would beat me up, sexually abuse me,” she said, her voice breaking in emotion. “Speaking about this is painful.” She later escaped, and is trying to rebuild her life.

‘Traffickers exploit millions’

In the world’s most populous nation, the scale of the problem is vast.

A 2023 US State Department report on trafficking said that India is making ‘significant efforts’ but that they still fall below minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. “Traffickers exploit millions of people in commercial sex within India,” the report read, saying some gangs arrange “sham marriages within India and Gulf states” before forcing women into the sex trade. Social media, as well as mobile dating sites, are used to lure victims, it added.

Many are trapped by the long-outlawed practice of bonded labor, dubbed ‘debt slavery’ by rights campaigners, in which victims are forced to work to pay back borrowed cash while interest keeps mounting. It said “significant numbers” of Nepali and Bangladeshi women and girls are also lured to India for sex trafficking with the false promise of a job.

Pallabi Ghosh, founder of Impact and Dialogue Foundation, which works on rehabilitating trafficked survivors, said the numbers reported were far lower than reality due to ‘stigma’.

Families often don’t want to pursue the case once a missing girl is rescued. “Trafficking cases are tough to lodge,” she said. “That is the reason why traffickers are out there at large.”

The problem is acute, said Pinaki Sinha, from Kolkata-based anti-trafficking charity Sanlaap. Poverty is a key cause, said Sinha, saying some parents wanted their daughter to marry into an “economically better off family”.

Instead, the girls were abused. “There is a lack of awareness—and a lack of adequate support,” he said.

‘Tore my clothes’

Ayesha, 18, swapped a life working in a garment factory in neighboring Bangladesh, handing her and her mother’s savings of $285 to a broker who promised to smuggle her into India for better paid factory work. But after arriving in India, she was told the work at the factory was no longer available but that she could instead dance in a bar. Refusing that, and without income or shelter, she stayed with a man who offered her a room—only to attack her.

“I was begging him and crying,” Ayesha said, also not her real name. “He abused and hit me, tore my clothes and assaulted me.” She was then repeatedly sexually abused by two men. “They raped me more than eight or nine times over 18 days,” she said.

Ayesha managed to escape after contacting a neighbor. “I told the police that I want the two men to be punished for raping me,” she said. But officers told her it was her “mistake” for coming illegally to India and dismissed the case. Ayesha has not lost hope, planning to return home and become a beautician. “I want to be self-sufficient,” she said. “I want to forget all about it.”

AFP

The cooperative sector of the country has been overwhelmed by fraudulent activities like fake marriages, property transfers and divorces. What’s more, cooperative institutions have been found to prepare fake audit reports and create fictitious creditors and shareholders.

The report prepared by the Parliamentary Special Investigation Committee on Misappropriation of Cooperative Savings reveals various malpractices and illegal activities in the cooperative sector. Among the 40 cooperatives under the committee’s scanner, 22 were declared problematic, while questions have been raised about the governance of 18 others. Six of these cooperatives have transactional links with the Gorkha Media Network.

GB Rai’s role

Gitendra Babu (GB) Rai from Okhaldhunga operated seven cooperatives across the country. He exercised sole decision-making authority in all of them. Some of these institutions were new, while others had merged with existing cooperatives. 

GB misappropriated nearly Rs 8.84bn in deposits from these cooperatives. Funds were misappropriated from Supreme Savings and Credit Cooperatives in Butwal, Sahara in Chitwan, Suryadarshan in Pokhara, Samanata in Banke, Swarnalaxmi in Kathmandu, Sanopaila in Birgunj and Hamro Naya Krishi Cooperative.

Chartered flight for spouse 

GB remains under intense public scrutiny, yet police have not been able to arrest and investigate him. According to the committee’s report, GB chartered helicopters using cooperative deposits to celebrate his wife’s birthday in exotic locations like the Everest Base Camp.

“This is an example of how they misused the depositors’ money,” said committee chair Surya Thapa. “We found various types of misuse of cooperative funds during our investigation.”

The top defaulter  

Shivashikhar Multipurpose Cooperative Limited in Kaushaltar, Bhaktapur, tops the list of cooperatives in terms of misappropriation of deposits. The cooperative now has a total liability of Rs 10.91bn, according to the report. This comprises savings, interest due on savings and various tax obligations to the state.

Shivaashikhar was formed through a merger of Shivashikhar Agriculture Cooperative with Shikhardeep Multipurpose Cooperative some five years ago. Kedar Nath Sharma was the chairperson of both institutions prior to the merger.

Per the report, the cooperative had mobilized savings without proper asset and liability management, resulting in a significant imbalance between assets and liabilities.

According to cooperative regulations, members cannot get new loans till the repayment of initial loans. However, Shivshikhar repeatedly disbursed Rs 674.2m to 24 members through 72 loans.

Other cooperatives that misappropriated billions include Sri Laligurans, Agriculture Development, and Sumeru of Lalitpur; Kantipur, Gorkha, Swarnalaxmi, Oriental, Capital, Gautam Shree, Jestha and Kumari of Kathmandu; and Ideal and Sanopaila of Birgunj.

These cooperatives owe Rs 634.2m in various taxes to the government and Rs 1.38bn in interest to depositors for their savings.

A silver bullet?

Committee chair Thapa has a simple solution to the crisis: the implementation of the committeé’s recommendations.

Since 1967, various state-commissioned committees, commissions, study teams and special committees have ‘studied’ cooperative institutions and submitted their reports to responsible authorities, but their recommendations have largely gone unimplemented. 

This parliamentary special investigation committee is the 13th such committee and the first first committee formed by the parliament whose recommendations were passed unanimously and submitted to the government for implementation.

Submitted in mid-September, the committee’s report has recommended establishing a cooperative authority within three months and, until then, supervising cooperatives with total assets exceeding Rs 500m under the Cooperative Act and Nepal Rastra Bank Act (amended March 2024).

The committee has recommended conducting audits of cooperatives by auditors registered with the Cooperative Authority and classifying cooperatives into A, B and C categories based on capital and financial mobilization capacity for regulation. It has also suggested dissolving the National Cooperative Development Board and Cooperative Department after the establishment of the Cooperative Authority.

Warning of protests 

Meanwhile, Kushalabh KC, central chairperson of the Cooperative Depositors Victim Protection National Campaign, has accused the government of taking no action on cooperative victims’ demands. “No matter how much we shouted, the government didn't listen. We are preparing for decisive street protests on Dec 20,” he said. “No one will return home until concrete decisions are made.”

He said the government hasn’t implemented written agreements made repeatedly.

Kiran Shrestha, chairperson of the Suryadarshan Savings Victims’ Struggle Committee, accused the government of not taking concrete steps to return the depositors’ money. “The government seems occupied only with arrests, actions and controlling protests with no discussion on returning the savings.” 

According to Shrestha, 1,050 people have filed complaints seeking the return of their deposits parked in Pokhara-based Suryadarshan Cooperatives alone.

In response to the concerns about the gobbling up of the depositors’ funds, Minister for Land Management, Cooperatives, and Poverty Alleviation Balram Adhikari said that preparations are afoot to establish a cooperative authority as per the parliamentary committee’s recommendations. “Work has not gained momentum because there is a lack of clarity on whether the authority will be under the central bank or the government,” he added.

Today marks the celebration of Chhath, a festival embodying purity, goodwill, and faith, observed with great enthusiasm.

The main ritual will take place this evening, as devotees worship and make offerings to the setting sun.

Though traditionally observed in the Terai districts, Chhath has recently gained popularity in hilly and mountainous areas, including the Kathmandu Valley.

During the festival, participants fast, take holy baths, and offer prasad and argha to the sun while standing in water.

In Janakpurdham, large gatherings are occurring at historic ponds like Ganga Sagar, Dhanus Sagar, Ram Sagar, Ratna Sagar, Bihar Kunda, Argaja, Maharaj Sagar, and Agni Kunda.

Preparations include bamboo fencing, banana trees, and vibrant lighting, enhancing the celebratory atmosphere.