Category: Non-Fiction
Rights: All rights available
Every year, thousands of negotiators, diplomats, scientists, activists and lobbyists descend upon the UN Climate Conference with a shared mission: save the planet. What follows is a whirlwind of marathon negotiations, diplomatic deadlock, baffling acronyms, soaring rhetoric, political theatre and enough jargon to make even seasoned observers question what just happened.
For the past five years, acclaimed cartoonist Rohan Chakravarty has had the unusual job of making sense of it all, one cartoon at a time. He attends UN COPs online, drawing live cartoons on COP negotiations, debates, alliances and outcomes.
The Cop-Medy of Errors is a visual chronicle of five years of UN Climate Conferences, told through cartoons created live as negotiations unfolded. Rather than simply poking fun at diplomatic theatre, the book untangles the politics, competing interests and human stories behind the world’s most consequential climate conversations, showing how cartoons can illuminate what policy documents often obscure.
But beyond the diplomatic spectacle lies another story: the scientists, indigenous leaders, grassroots organisations and climate advocates who work tirelessly behind the scenes to push the conversation forward, often despite the politics rather than because of it. Their persistence lends the book its quiet optimism, reminding readers that meaningful climate action is driven as much by people as by policy.
Equal parts graphic reportage, political satire and visual guide to one of the world’s most consequential annual gatherings, The Cop-Medy of Errors demonstrates how cartoons can cut through complexity, challenge complacency and make climate diplomacy not just understandable, but impossible to ignore.
The author: Rohan Chakravarty