The provisional list of attendees at the ongoing United Nations climate talks (COP29) shows that Nigeria has the eighth largest delegation in the world and the largest in Africa.
According to an analysis by Carbon Brief, COP29 host Azerbaijan has the largest delegation at the summit, with 2,229 people registered for badges. This is followed by Brazil (1,914) and Turkey (1,862) with the second and third-largest delegations, respectively.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), hosts of COP28 in Dubai, has the fourth-largest delegation (1,011) and China (969) has the fifth.
The rest of the top 10 comprises Russia (900), Indonesia (810), Nigeria (634), Japan (595) and Kazakhstan (478).
Just outside the top 10 is the UK in 11th (470), as well as the US (405) in 16th and Australia (394) in 19th.
It is worth noting that these are provisional figures, based on the delegates that have registered for the summit. The UNFCCC will release the final figures – based on participants collecting a physical badge at the venue – after the summit has closed.
More than 65,000 delegates have registered to attend the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, potentially making it the second-largest COP on record.
However, this figure is less than the record-breaking figure of COP28 in Dubai last year with more than 83,000 delegates.
Nevertheless, the size of the Baku summit surpasses major Conference of Parties (COPs) of the past, including Copenhagen, Paris and Glasgow.
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At last year’s COP, the participant lists published by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – for the first time – named every single person that had registered for the summit (excluding support staff). Previously, COPs have typically included thousands of “overflow” participants in which countries and UN agencies could nominate delegates without their names appearing on their official lists.
It was a topic of controversy among Nigerians during COP28 last year, when Nigeria recorded a total of 1,411 delegates, the highest in Africa and the third highest globally in the Dubai summit. The size of Nigeria’s delegation that year tied with that of China and surpassed America’s 770 delegates. President Bola Tinubu attended the COP28 summit in person.
