COP30: Multilateralism on Life Support

COP30 takes place in a context of profound geopolitical instability and waning confidence in multilateral governance. The symbolism of Belém - situated at the gateway to the Amazon, one of the world’s most vital carbon sinks - starkly contrasts with the practical inaccessibility of the city, the logistical challenges of the summit, and the political fragmentation that now shapes international climate action.

This COP represents the third major moment under the Paris Agreement in which countries are expected to update and strengthen their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) - the core expression of their ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, as of late October, only a minority of countries had submitted revised pledges. A significant part of global emissions remain uncovered by credible or updated 2035 targets. The central promise of the Paris framework - a progressive ratcheting-up of ambition every five years - is now under visible strain.

Moreover, competition has moved to the center of climate diplomacy to an unprecedented degree: competition for leadership in clean technologies, for trade advantage, for access to critical raw materials, for geopolitical influence, and for climate finance. Additionally, this time, the absence of the U.S. federal government at COPt is not only passive; it is increasingly accompanied by active opposition to collective climate action.

Against this backdrop, the core question of COP30 becomes clear: is this a summit to merely preserve multilateralism, or can it still deliver renewed ambition?

A Weak NDC Cycle and an Eroded Ratchet Mechanism

Under the Paris Agreement, the 2035 NDCs are required to reflect the scientific imperative emerging from the first Global Stocktake: a 60% reduction in global GHG emissions between 2019 and 2035 to keep 1.5°C "alive." Instead, the UNFCCC synthesis report depicts a mixed and insufficient picture:

• As of early November 2025, only 69 countries have submitted new NDCs - representing 61% of global emissions.
• When including announced but not formally submitted targets, 98 countries (covering ~80% of global emissions) imply only a ~10% reduction in global emissions by 2035.
• With current pledges, global temperature projections remain close to 2.5°C by 2100 - still far from Paris alignment.

The current ambition gap is not solely a matter of insufficient emissions targets; it reflects deeper structural and political dynamics. In several advanced economies, climate policy has become a focal point of domestic backlash, fueling electoral polarization and slowing the implementation of previously agreed measures. In many emerging markets, slowing growth and tighter fiscal conditions have constrained the capacity to invest in low-carbon infrastructure at the pace required.

Europe’s Leadership Under Pressure

The European Union still presents itself as the anchor of global climate ambition. Yet its diplomatic credibility is weakened by internal disagreements over its new 2040 climate target, which is structurally linked to the European NDC covering the 2035 horizon.

In July, the Commission proposed a 90% emissions reduction by 2040, explicitly framing this as the quantitative basis of the EU’s post-2030 NDC. However, this objective has since become the subject of intense political contestation:

• France has secured concessions on nuclear neutrality, sectoral flexibility, and potentially expanded use of international carbon credits.
• Germany faces industrial backlash over the ETS free allocation phase-out, CBAM implementation, and beyond, the ban of new combustion engine sales by 2035.
• Several Member States (Poland, Hungary, others) resist binding constraints due to domestic political and economic tensions.

In the run-up to COP30, Council negotiations have focused less on headline ambition than on the conditions for delivering it: sectoral flexibilities, uncertainty around land sinks, expanded use of international offsets, and safeguards to ensure that climate goals do not undermine industrial competitiveness or defense priorities.

In this context, the freshly agreed EU NDC signals a strategic shift. The EU is preparing to use Article 6 mechanisms - international carbon credits - not only as instruments of global cooperation, but also to contain the domestic cost of deep emissions cuts. The EU has now agreed to a -90% reduction target at EU level, including a -85% binding obligation for each Member State, plus a 5% allowance for international credits at EU level. Within the -85% national targets - but outside of ETS 1 and 2 that are collective targets - Member States may also use up to 5% international credits, subject to Commission approval. This means that, in total, up to around 6% in the -90% target could be achieved through international credits.

If sourced with high integrity (20euros/tons), this would amount to €5-6 billion in credit purchases outside the EU.

The EU is thus setting a highly ambitious trajectory, but pairing it with differentiated flexibility mechanisms to ensure political and economic feasibility across the Union. This raises two strategic questions.

First, how far can the EU rely on external mitigation without weakening the credibility of its own decarbonization pathway? This theoretical 6% ceiling (backed by France and ultimately adopted - roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of Belgium and Portugal combined) is not a technical detail. It will shape the scale of Europe’s industrial transformation, the visibility of financial transfers abroad, and the narrative Europe projects in climate diplomacy.

On the one hand, Article 6 can channel climate finance where abatement costs are lower and help build low-carbon infrastructure in partner countries. On the other hand, substituting external offsets for domestic action risks eroding the investment signal needed to build a competitive low-carbon industrial base, weakening the credibility of EU climate leadership, and complicating the logic of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which assumes a phased removal of free allowances.

As a result, even with the use of international credits, the EU enters COP30 with the most ambitious NDC among major economies. It can therefore still claim climate leadership. But in Belém, its diplomatic credibility will depend less on the target itself than on the consistency and resolve with which the EU works to elevate global ambition - and demonstrates that it is prepared to deliver at home.

China: Strong on Capacity, Weak on Commitment

China enters COP30 in a paradoxical position. On the one hand, it is now the undisputed engine of the clean economy: dominating global supply chains in solar, wind, EVs, and batteries. Its industrial policy is structurally aligned with the energy transition.

On the other hand, its newly announced NDC is remarkably conservative:

• A 7-10% reduction in net GHG emissions from an unspecified peak by 2035.
• Expansion of wind and solar capacity to ~3,600 GW and an increase in the non-fossil share of energy consumption to above 30% by 2035 - targets that are impressive in scale, but actually fall below the pace of China’s current deployment trajectory, and therefore signal consolidation rather than acceleration.
• Expansion of the national ETS and increased EV penetration.

This pledge falls far short of what is needed from China for 1.5°C alignment.
Scientific benchmarks indicate:

• -30% by 2035 is required for 1.5°C,
• -20% for a credible 2°C pathway.

Moreover, China omitted any new commitments on coal phase-down, arguably the most politically consequential signal it could have sent. China has continued to expand coal power capacity, with ~80 GW under construction in 2025 and over 300 GW permitted since 2022, even as renewables accelerate.

Yet China’s credibility comes from a different place: delivery rather than objective. Chinese climate diplomacy emphasizes keeping commitments nationally determined, resisting external pressure for uniform timelines.

For China, COP30 is not the venue for new headline commitments. Beijing’s priority is to safeguard the legitimacy of the Paris framework, highlight progress driven by domestic policy rather than external pressure, and shape the global narrative. In its updated NDC, China reiterates that developed countries must reach net zero well before 2050 and shoulder greater financial responsibilities, while presenting itself as a defender of cooperation against what it characterizes as "unilateral" trade and industrial measures that risk distorting climate action.

This stance carries a three-fold message:
- To the United States (and in particular the Trump administration): The US should not try to derail global climate governance.
- To Europe: industrial de-risking must not turn into protectionism targeting Chinese clean-tech goods and low-carbon industrial materials.
- To the rest of the Global South: China is positioning itself as the advocate of "climate justice" and equitable transition.

In the 2025 context, this positions China as a necessary and strategic co-architect of global climate governance-one that seeks to use the multilateral process to advance its broader economic and diplomatic interests. Beijing increasingly views global climate action as an extension of industrial strategy and a lever of international economic influence. Its cautious 2035 target reflects both the geopolitical moment and domestic priorities: energy security and economic development first, climate ambition second.

Brazil will have to Be Broker, Storyteller, and Agenda-Setter

As COP President, Brazil seeks to re-center the negotiations around forests, biodiversity, and land-use finance; to advance the notion of a "development-centered transition"; and to prevent a further erosion of trust between the Global North and South. The Brazilian presidency is also reviving interest in global carbon pricing mechanisms as a way to scale up international carbon credit markets - in which Brazil would stand to benefit significantly given its vast forest resources.

In essence, Brazil’s core message to developed countries will be direct: if you expect higher ambition, where is the financing to enable it? This stance will be difficult for Brussels to accommodate, and it will almost certainly prompt reciprocal pressure on China to clarify what contribution it is willing to make to climate finance. Yet China remains firmly committed to retaining its developing country status within the UN system-both for geopolitical positioning and to avoid formal financial obligations-which, in the absence of the US, limits the space for a straightforward burden-sharing agreement.

Finance, Trade, and the Super-politicization of Climate Cooperation

Once again, finance risks becoming the hinge issue of COP30-a recurring fracture line that has never been fully resolved. The New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) must now be operationalized for the post-2030 period. The agreement reached at COP29, which set an aspirational target of $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance flows and a minimum of $300 billion per year in public finance by 2035, is widely viewed as insufficient to match the scale of investment required. Reaching a 1.5°C-compatible trajectory requires $4-5 trillion in annual clean investment by 2030, roughly triple current levels.

At the same time, the political economy of climate finance has changed. China is now a major global lender, yet continues to resist any framing that would assign it formal climate finance obligations. Europe argues that it cannot finance the transition alone, and increasingly presses China to contribute. The United States - which should be the principal provider of international climate finance - will be effectively absent at the federal level. In its place, a patchwork of private philanthropies and subnational actors in Democratic-led states will attempt to signal continued engagement. However, these efforts can only partially mask the structural lack of federal capacity and political will to deliver finance at the scale required.

Meanwhile, trade tensions are intensifying:

• China now manufactures over 80% of the world’s solar modules, 65% of global wind turbine components, and more than 70% of EV batteries, shaping global cost and supply chain dynamics.
• The EU’s CBAM - set to be implemented from next year - is still depicted not only as a climate instrument but also as trade policy. 
• Beijing interprets European actions on EV tariffs, solar anti-dumping, and critical raw materials as part of a strategy of geoeconomic containment. 
• And many countries fear that the new decarbonization landscape risks replacing dependence on fossil fuel imports with dependence on imported clean technologies.

What emerges is a COP shaped not only by emissions trajectories, but by trade, industrial strategy, and economic power. Climate governance is entering a phase in which market leverage matters as much as moral leadership.

Will this Be a COP Reduced to Procedural Survival?

If major actors prioritize caution and domestic political considerations, COP30 risks settling into a scenario of multilateral minimalism. This would mean a simple acknowledgement of the ambition gap, without any collective effort to revise NDCs upward. Progress would be limited to procedural matters, and the Paris framework would be reaffirmed, but not meaningfully strengthened.

Such an outcome would preserve the institutional form of the Paris Agreement, while undermining its functional core: the ratchet mechanism designed to drive ambition upward every five years. If the ratchet fails at this third NDC cycle, its credibility as a driver of alignment with climate science will be severely weakened.

In that case, the future trajectory of global emissions will be determined less by multilateral pledges and more by industrial strategy and geopolitical rivalry. The decisive variables will shift to the strategies deployed by China, the United States, and Europe-particularly in clean technology competition, trade measures, supply chain security, and energy transition investment.

Can Belém Avoid Becoming a Diplomatic Holding Pattern?

The central challenge of COP30 is to avoid becoming only a summit of managed stagnation.
The world does not lack technological solutions, capital, or understanding of the required emissions pathway. What it lacks is political alignment between climate goals and economic strategy.

In an "ideal scenario", to restore momentum, COP30 must:

1. Reaffirm the ratchet mechanism by inviting enhanced NDCs before 2027.
2. Anchor finance credibility by clarifying pathways to the NCQG, including new development finance instruments.
3. Acknowledge competition as a structural reality, and articulate principles for fair, climate-aligned industrial policy.

This COP will not resolve the geopolitical conflicts shaping climate action. But it can still define whether the international system continues to possess a functional arena in which to negotiate them.

If Belém succeeds, it will not be because it delivered breakthrough pledges - but because it kept the space for collective climate governance alive in a world moving rapidly toward fragmentation.

Copyright image: Michael DANTAS / AFP
A canoe sails on the Solimoes River, in Alvaraes, Amazonas State, northern Brazil, on April 16, 2025.