Many observers view climate multilateralism as being at its lowest point. The return of US President Donald Trump has further shaken global cooperation, injecting policy reversals and uncertainty at a time when nations should be moving in a collective direction. Currently, the geopolitical climate is becoming more volatile, with tensions between major powers also sharpening. In the increasingly competitive geopolitical landscape, countries find it more politically difficult to cooperate because they often see each other’s strategic actions as aligning with or distancing from a specific bloc. 

At the global level, issues such as trade disputes, supply chain competition and wars have fuelled a resurgence of unilateralism and nationalist political movements that prioritize domestic interests over global cooperation. At the same time, domestic crises ranging from economic inflation, unresolved territorial disputes and mass immigration have altogether pushed government priorities inwards, readjusting their focus toward domestic economic and security anxieties.

In a world where more nations are reasserting nationalism and turning more inward, international cooperation on climate change is becoming more politically unfashionable. As tensions grow and countries withdraw from collaboration, wealthy nations’ moral obligations to support vulnerable nations in addressing climate change will be put to the test.

Conference of the Parties: A series of disappointments for developing countries

As wealthy nations’ attention to climate change drifts, developing countries increasingly place their hopes in the UN Climate Conference or Conference of the Parties (COPs). However, the conference, once a source of optimism, has become a litany of disappointments for developing countries, owing to a lack of ambition, watered-down commitments and growing political fatigue.

Issues such as fair climate finance and fossil fuel phase-out repeatedly fall short of expectations. Decision-makers continually postpone or dilute loss-and-damage funding, pushing it from one conference to the next as the crisis worsens. Straightforward language calling for a “coal phase-out” is often resisted by fossil-fuel-dependent nations, and replaced by more ambiguous terms such as “phase down” or “transitioning away.”

The increasing presence of fossil fuel lobbyists has become another troubling trend. At COP28, the number of fossil fuel lobbyists reached an unprecedented level, surpassing the combined delegations of the ten most climate-vulnerable countries. This pattern continued at COP30, where 1,600 delegations swarmed the conference, breaking another record and outnumbering all delegations from every nation except the host country.

Prior to COP30, the Fung-wong typhoons devastated the Philippines, killing several people and forcing nearly a million people to evacuate. Still, fossil fuel lobbyists outnumbered the Philippine delegation at COP30 by roughly a  50:1 ratio. 

Given the lack of actual progress and the growing influence of fossil fuel lobbies, do COPs and the Paris Agreement still serve their intended purpose?

Are COPs and the Paris Agreement still fit for purpose?

Climate conferences and the Paris Agreement delivered two unsettling truths. Before 2015, the world was on course for 4°C of warming. Today, though still far from the 1.5°C threshold, projections hover around 2.7°C, an improvement only made possible by climate accords and decades of global cooperation. However, annual greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to rise by roughly 40% since the early 1990s. These two contradictory realities lead to a conclusion: while multilateralism may have slowed the growth of emissions, it has not moved fast enough to keep 1.5 degrees within reach.

Global momentum for a fossil fuel phaseout became more structured at COP30, with a broader coalition of countries pushing for a clear, time-bound economy-wide roadmap. Support for the roadmap spans from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific, EU member states and the United Kingdom. However, major global emitters, including the United States, China, India and most of ASEAN Member States (AMS), were unfortunately absent from this coalition. Despite growing support, the COP30 final text was widely condemned as shamefully weak because it omitted both the proposed roadmap and the explicit timeline for phasing out fossil fuels.

A series of underwhelming COP outcomes makes one thing clear: the current system is moving far too slowly for a crisis that demands far greater ambition and urgency. While many negotiators have long pushed for the adoption of voting mechanisms to curb veto power and accelerate decisions on contentious issues, developing countries should also collectively call for a more transparent system and stricter convention-wide policies to limit the presence and influence of fossil-fuel lobbyists at the climate conference.

Reforming COP negotiations as climate multilateralism declines

Global momentum for a collective fossil fuel phase-out grew stronger at COP30, marking an unprecedented step compared to previous COPs, with most of the Global South and North now urging an action-oriented pathway to phase out fossil fuels. However, this progress rings hollow if countries simultaneously allow or send fossil fuel lobbyists into the negotiations, exposing a contradiction that undermines trust and reveals a persistent double standard. As the number of fossil fuel lobbyists grows, it is hard to ignore how their overwhelming influence at COPs likely contributes to the failure to secure a robust fossil fuel phaseout roadmap and the persistent shortfall in climate finance.

In the absence of binding conflict-of-interest rules, countries should demonstrate renewed political commitment by supporting and adhering to a United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) wide transparency and conflict-of-interest framework. Such a framework could significantly reduce fossil fuel corporate sponsorships at COPs, improve transparency around participants’ affiliations and ultimately limit the influence of fossil fuel interests on contentious issues. This framework must establish clear regulations to curb the influence of nonstate actors, including the exclusion of corporate entities whose business models are fundamentally incompatible with the 1.5°C objective. 

All developed and developing countries should likewise prohibit fossil fuel companies from being accredited as members of national negotiation teams and restrict their participation in official country delegations, since even Indonesia reportedly allowed fossil-fuel lobbyists to influence its official negotiating position, resulting in the country receiving the “Fossil of the Day” award.

For the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Islands Developing States (SIDS), the consequences of a weakening climate multilateralism and dysfunctional COPs will be severe. This is especially true, as many of them lack the economic strength to join influential blocs (such as the G20), where meaningful opportunities to reamplify the climate agenda exist. As multilateral cooperation is at a low point and climate finance is still falling far short, reforming the way climate decisions are negotiated at COPs may be the most viable path to avert the escalating climate calamity ahead.

In an increasingly challenging geopolitical landscape, countries’ political morals will face a defining test. Although political momentum to phase out fossil fuels has grown considerably, countries’ political willingness to also curb fossil fuel lobby influence, embrace UNFCCC-wide transparency, and disclose the composition of their delegations will ultimately determine whether their climate commitments are sincere or merely symbolic.

[Liam Roman edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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