Overview
- PLOS Climate published findings showing COP conference sites emit up to 10 times the carbon per page view compared with average webpages.
- Average emissions from COP websites increased by more than 13,000% between 1995 and 2024, with a sharp jump after COP14 to more than 2.4g per visit versus about 0.36g for a typical page.
- Internet traffic magnifies the impact, with COP29 homepage visits alone estimated at 116.85kg CO2e, which researchers equate to the annual absorption of up to 10 mature trees.
- The team analyzed Internet Archive snapshots using bespoke, openly released code in what they describe as the first use of web archives to track websites’ environmental impact over time.
- The researchers note COP30’s site is not hosted on verified renewable energy infrastructure and say its emissions have not yet been calculated, urging page-size limits, layout optimization and renewable-powered hosting.