COP30 - Should Climate Multilateralism Be Preserved Whatever it Takes?

Should climate multilateralism be preserved whatever it takes ? Yes, although multilateralism will not solve the climate issue. This is the main lesson to be drawn from the Brazilian COP.

With COP30 in Belém over, the prevailing feeling is that there is a growing gap between the scale of the climate crisis and the ability of the multilateral process to respond to it. The "Global Mutirão" - a term from the Tupi-Guarani languages meaning a community working together on a common task - adopted at the end of the conference, "saved the essentials": the 1.5°C trajectory remains in the text, the importance of science is reaffirmed, equity-including the rights of indigenous communities-has made some progress, and cooperation remains a shared imperative. In a fractured geopolitical context, achieving agreement on those issues is notable in itself.

Nevertheless, the facts must be faced honestly: the outcome is weak and disappointing. COP30 barely stabilized the existing framework-it managed stagnation, which, given the scale of the challenges, is tragic. Progress is marginal, disagreements are structural, and major issues (finance, carbon markets, trade discussions) see limited movement. The COP confirms its status as a platform for discussion, essential but insufficient.

Multilateral Climate Mandarinism

In Brazil, climate diplomacy was unable to hide its current nature: a refined procedural system, exhausting itself to preserve the existence of the Paris Agreement processes, while lacking the capacity to support real change. 

Under the tents, almost no one questioned the climate action political framework. The simple fact that 194 parties adopted a joint text, even as the United States leaves the Paris Agreement again and trade tensions intensify, sends a strong signal. Multilateralism is holding strong.

But this multilateralism, which up until recently sought to create an effective regulatory framework, has scaled back its ambitions: the focus is now on managing stagnation, giving up on accelerating progress while tapping our shoulders for not going backwards.

The sea of talks fails to turn into deals and concessions. On fossil fuels, finance, the integrity of carbon markets, and clean technology value chains, the system barely manages to produce the lowest common denominator-far from effective. This was embodied by the Russian diplomat who, during the final plenary session, curtly replied "Stop acting like a child" to the Colombian representative-who expressed her disagreement with the text's lack of ambition. In a tense, paralyzing moment, cynicism and contemptuous infantilization were on display before the international community.

How Long Can Such a Balancing Act Last?

Some are betting on the end of Trump's term, hoping that better dispositions in Washington will give new impetus to climate action. But that amounts to several more years of stagnant conferences, punctuated by unlikely compromises: a COP31 co-hosted by Erdogan's Turkey and Australia-an almost surreal arrangement-, a COP32 in Ethiopia "to talk about adaptation," and perhaps a COP33 in India...

The CBDR Trap is Closing

The principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) has had - and retains - its legitimacy. But its current operational interpretation - more climate ambition in the Global South in exchange for massive financial transfers from the Global North, the famous Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement - keeps the system in a deadlock.

This ideal theoretical contract cannot materialize, for several reasons:

1. The scale of the financial needs exceeds what the public budgets of the North can absorb.
2. The geography of emissions and wealth has perennously changed. China has now accumulated more CO2 historical emissions than the EU, yet remains outside the official "donors."
3. The Gulf petrocracies, which once again in Belém were among the fiercest opponents of climate ambition, are still classified as "developing countries", a showcase of the absurdity of a rigid system.
4. The narrative becomes a tool for obstruction. As long as finance does not progress, other issues-ambition, trade, carbon markets-are systematically blocked.
    

As a result, the most ambitious countries find themselves locked in an impossible dilemma: pay or stay. No collective move forward will be possible without deep - and open - pockets.

While the COP Talks, the Battle is Raging Elsewhere

The climate transition is not just a moral battle-it is an industrial one. Decarbonization means knowing how to produce-on a massive scale-solar panels, electrolysers, HVDC cables, batteries, low-carbon steel, and recycled materials.

Napoleon advised never to interrupt an opponent who is making a mistake. China follows this maxime closely in the climate arena. Its motto: "Fight over words ! In the meantime, I’ll become indispensable in the technologies you will need to decarbonize."

The message was clear: China is already producing transition technologies on a large scale-batteries, electric vehicles, solar module recycling, industrial electrification-and sees itself as the world's supplier.

In almost every speech, Beijing invoked "climate cooperation." But the tacit is crystal clear. Cooperation here means China manufactures, the rest of the world buys.

If the transition shapes the new global economy, China intends to be its major power.

Multilateralism does not address this reality. It talks about it in terms of ideas-solidarity, ambition, fairness-but says nothing about the growing industrial asymmetry that determines the real capacity of states to decarbonize. It is not the decisions’ text that will determine the course of the transition, but control over value chains, costs, innovation, and recycling.

Action, not Ambition: China Doesn’t Want a Leading Role

Europe's weakness in Belém was not a lack of ambition-contrary to what has been written-but its inability to get the rest of the world on board with that ambition. With the United States once again choosing to stay on the sidelines, Europe found itself isolated, symbolically weakened, and much more discreet than at previous COPs. It has not lost its climate leadership; it has lost its ability to drive change.

Has China used this to assume the pole position on ambition? The answer is no. Beijing explicitly refuses this role. Its stance in Belém was consistent, calculated, and completely devoid of idealism: leading the narrative of the Global South, yes; leading climate ambition, definitely not.

For how can one claim to lead global ambition without being ambitious oneself?

A rapid goal of decarbonization would undermine its productive apparatus and, therefore, its economic stability.

This message was implicitly acknowledged in Belém. When Li Gao, head of the Chinese delegation, responded to European criticism of the weakness of China's NDC (Nationally Determined Contribution), he did so with disconcerting frankness:
"No country has instantly switched to a rapid downward curve after reaching peak emissions. China will take its time."

Although the fact is undeniable, this is relentless economic realism and a chilling observation for climate action. China's NDC effectively assumes aplateau until 2035: in other words, fifteen years before the supposed global carbon neutrality, China still plans to emit as much as in 2020, a staggering amount of emissions close to 10Gt of CO2.

In the Amazon, China was triumphant in terms of narrative, but absent in terms of concrete ambition. It is not slowing down the transition; it is letting it come to it, at its own pace, as the global economy becomes dependent on its technologies. And the climate world is gradually discovering that leading the Global South and leading global climate ambition are two distinct functions-and that Beijing has never claimed to take on the latter.

CBAM: a "Soft Constraint" Can Move the World

The only global climate instrument that has effectively shifted the lines in recent years does not come from the COP, but rather from the European CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism).

Without imposing unfair penalties, the CBAM creates a constraint for action: in order to export to Europe, which is imposing increasingly high carbon prices, it becomes rational to price carbon at home rather than pay the difference when entering the European market.

Since the announcement of the CBAM in 2021, the number of carbon pricing systems has more than doubled worldwide. Even in states that publicly oppose it, the effect is privately acknowledged behind closed doors.

This is fundamental proof that "minilateralism of action" is possible for climate ambition. One group of countries moves forward with binding measures that impact trade, while others adapt, not out of ideological alignment, but out of economic necessity.

None of this contradicts multilateralism. But none of it stems from it either.

Nothing will be simple. There is a lack of trust between stakeholders, energy data remains a strategic issue, and the technical compatibility of systems is far from guaranteed. But the political signal is important. The fact that the European Union, Canada-and even China-have agreed to participate in this platform indicates that the stakes are now too high to be ignored.

Changing Climate Governance

What is missing today is not a grand multilateral agreement-that will not happen. What is missing is the link between ambition and action.
Instead of focusing exclusively on phasing out fossil fuels-which is essential but politically congested-the process should explicitly integrate:

• industrial platforms for the production of clean technologies
• coalitions for the purchase of low-carbon goods
• climate trade agreements
• cooperation on carbon pricing

The climate architecture must accept that some states will act faster than others.
Multilateralism has a floor setting role to play. But the ceiling-the acceleration-will come from coalitions capable of linking climate, industry, trade, and finance.

Action Can Precede Negotiation

COP30 avoided a breakdown, but it confirmed one reality: climate multilateralism is not advancing at the same pace as the scientific, industrial, or geopolitical transition.

If it must be preserved, we can’t ask it to deliver what it can no longer offer. Climate action is not played out in UN negotiations, but in the ability of states to put in place instruments that convert ambition into economic transformation.

The CBAM teaches us that when action precedes negotiation, cooperation follows.

The challenge in the coming years will therefore be to embrace a hybrid model in which multilateralism provides a minimal political framework and minilateralism takes action to create the missing economic incentives.

Copyright image : Pablo PORCIUNCULA / AFP
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at COP30 in Belem.