As discord and uncertainty continue to characterize the global order, the renewal of multilateral cooperation on climate change proved an uphill battle at COP30 in Brazil, which took place in the Amazonian city of Belem from November 10 to 21. The hope of Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, whose government hosted the meetings, was to reinvigorate climate multilateralism through a vision that recognizes the unequal impacts of the global green transition.
Brazil dubbed the summit a global mutirão in Portuguese, or collective effort, amidst the ongoing crisis of global multilateralism. The COP30 negotiations were marked by longstanding tensions over unilateral climate measures as well as renewed resolve to keep climate multilateralism alive in the COP’s final declaration. While COP30 has not been widely hailed as a success, several initiatives which foregrounded the uneven impacts of the green transition represent significant developments.
Although some countries and particular industries are making progress towards decarbonization, the world is falling dramatically short of the targets set in the 2015 Paris Agreement. The 2024 UN report estimates that cuts of 42 per cent would still be needed by 2030 and 57 per cent by 2035 to meet the global 1.5° Celsius warming target set out in the 2015 COP.
Public support for climate change mitigation policies has eroded over the past decade, with climate and environmental issues falling down the political agenda and the rise of political backlashes against climate change policies occurring across many countries, notably in the U.S., where President Trump continues to refer to climate change as a “hoax.”
Concerns over the uneven impacts and costs of the green transition and climate change mitigation policies are not limited to climate skeptics or opponents of climate multilateralism, such as President Trump. Strong supporters of climate multilateralism, such as Brazil’s Lula, have also expressed concerns about the uneven economic costs that the green transition and climate change mitigation are imposing on the Global South and these divisions marked the COP30 meetings.
A controversial issue at the talks were unilateral climate measures that affect trade and market access and are at odds with the multilateral spirit of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreement and with trade agreements such as those of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The most hotly contested unilateral climate measures are those associated with the European Union Green Deal (EGD), including the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which applies an import tax on cement, steel, and other products imported into the EU from jurisdictions without carbon pricing systems.
The EU is not the only jurisdiction implementing such unilateral climate measures. The UK government is moving to implement its own carbon border adjustment in 2027, and the Canadian government has explored doing so in the past, underscoring the potential for global regulatory fragmentation amid the current crisis of multilateralism.
Unilateral climate change mitigation policies raise the question of who pays for the transition to a greener global economy. CBAM and other unilateral climate regulations associated with the EGD impacting trade have generated controversy because they impose EU legal norms and standards on foreign jurisdictions, in contexts where both governments and firms may not have the capacity to adapt to EU standards.
Addressing these concerns in a 2023 speech, Brazil’s Lula went so far as to refer to the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which mandates traceability for six commodities produced in tropical countries to prove that their production didn’t cause deforestation before 2020, as a form of green neocolonialism. Many countries in the Global South are concerned about the differential capacity of their firms and sectors to green their operations, as sustainability has increasingly become a competitive advantage and a source of capital accumulation for firms.
The BASIC Group within the UNFCCC (made up of Brazil, South Africa, India and China) has expressed opposition to unilateral trade measures within the COP system as well as through other international forums like the World Trade Organization (WTO) with Malaysia having launched a complaint against the EUDR at the WTO in 2021 and Russia having launched a case at the WTO against CBAM in 2025. In these cases, the complainants at the WTO frame their arguments around the unilateral nature of EU regulations and in terms of upholding existing WTO rules. .
Unilateral climate measures sit uneasily with the principle of Common but Differential Responsibilities (CBDR) outlined in Article 3 of the 1992 UNFCCC agreement, which states that, based on the principle of “equity” between the Global North and Global South, “developed country Parties should take the lead in combating climate change.” Critics see unilateral measures that restrict market access, such as CBAM and the EUDR, as undermining equity, the principle of CBDR, and the multilateral nature of the UNFCCC agreement. Critics of CBAM, the EUDR, and other unilateral climate policies have also argued that regulations such as the EUDR and CBAM could create a green squeeze for countries in the Global South, risking market access if they cannot comply with these new EU regulatory requirements. The impact of measures like CBAM and the EUDR has also been described as “green protectionism” and as the creation of a “climate fence” for exporters in the Global South.
Despite these criticisms, researchers have also described the EGD as the most politically ambitious climate policy framework in the world today. The ambitious scope of the EGD has already led to the scaling back of some of its regulatory initiatives due to political and corporate pressure, including a reduction in the EU’s emissions reduction targets ahead of COP30h.
Another regulatory measure under the EGD is the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), which requires companies to align with the overall emissions-reduction targets of the EGD and to conduct due diligence reporting on labour and human rights violations across their supply chains. This measure has been similarly watered down since it came into force.
These regulatory initiatives of the EGD and other unilateral measures that impact climate policy are significant developments because they represent a move away from voluntary codes of conduct that have been dominant since the 1992 Rio Conference, towards binding state regulation. The central pretext of the UNFCCC system is that addressing climate change can be accomplished through collective action amongst states though hard or legally-binding multilateral commitments have proven largely elusive.
While the 2015 Paris Agreement includes some legally binding elements, it is not fully legally binding, and countries are falling far short of meeting the targets. By contrast, the EGD’s unilateral approach represents a move towards hard law, not seen since the 1970s and 1980s when the UN’s Centre on Transnational Corporations (UNCTC) developed proposals to implement binding environmental regulatory measures.
Those proposals favoured the development of corporate accountability in global environmental governance, but were sidelined at the 1992 Rio Conference in favour of soft or voluntary standards. Though unilateral trade measures like CBAM and the EUDR impose an inequitable burden on countries in the Global South whose firms and governments may lack the capacity to adapt, the EGD’s move towards hard regulation is a significant shift that other multilateral regulatory proposals could learn from.
Multilateral action based on the principle of CBDR and a just global transition is the alternative to climate unilateralism. This would mean the development of binding rules at the nexus between climate change and trade, either through the World Trade Organization (WTO) or other bilateral and plurilateral trade agreements.
Over several decades, trade agreements have incorporated environmental chapters or regulations, though most of the rules are non-binding. Since 2020, the WTO has attempted to position itself as a global institution capable of addressing climate change through the Trade and Environmental Sustainability Structured Discussions (TESSD).
The most concrete development coming out of the WTO has been the signing of a plurilateral agreement by Costa Rica, New Zealand, Switzerland and Iceland, the Agreement on Climate Change, Trade and Sustainability (ACCTS) in November 2024. This agreement includes collaboration among the four governments to advance regulatory harmonization of sustainability standards or Ecolabels, as well as binding commitments to restrict fossil fuel subsidies. The agreement promotes further trade liberalization in environmental goods and services, placing it within the existing free trade paradigm.
The rules of the WTO, and other trade agreements, favour market access and investor rights over climate policy space. This is a significant impediment to addressing climate change, particularly for countries in the Global South.U.S. groups have campaigned for a climate peace clause to provide greater policy space for green climate and industrial policy measures and to avoid investor-state cases under WTO or other trade agreement rules.
While hard multilateral rules remain far off, there are also many soft global rules that help to drive climate change mitigation, such as those developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which impact a wide range of industries, technologies, and management systems. The WTO and other trade agreements strongly encourage countries to harmonize their national regulations and standards with ISO standards and COP meetings also serve to advance such measures. .
As scholars who study global standards have argued, ISO standards are becoming a more important driver of climate change mitigation. However, the capacity of industries across the Global North and Global South to comply with ISO standards is uneven. Firms in the Global South already lose market access because they are unable to comply with ISO standards, paralleling concerns that unilateral climate measures may restrict market access. Multilateral climate action must prioritize technology transfer and capacity building to ensure that Global South countries can harmonize upwards and meet more stringent global standards.
The elephant in the room with regards to unilateral climate measures and climate change in general is multilateral climate financing, which remains below COP targets and far below what estimates of what would be required to support climate mitigation and adaptation. The role of multilateral initiatives such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF) would need to be expanded massively to support technology transfer that can drive decarbonization.
A historical lesson here is the success of the 1987 Montreal Protocol, widely considered the most effective Multilateral Environmental Agreement of all time. The success of the Montreal Protocol is credited to the compensation mechanisms that were part of the agreement, which provided compensation and technical assistance to developing country signatories.
The lesson from the current debate over unilateral climate measures is that carrots (technology transfer, capacity building) work more effectively than punitive unilateral approaches, which countries in the Global South have been so critical of.
In the lead-up to COP30, Brazil sought to leverage its role as host to promote multilateral cooperation that bridges tensions across the Global North and Global South over unilateral trade measures and the broader imperative of a just transition. Before the inauguration of COP30, Brazil proposed the creation of the Integrated Forum on Trade and Climate Change (IFTCC) , a new international space anchored in the Forum on Trade, Environment & the SDGs (TESS), a think tank based in Geneva.
The impetus behind the initiative is to create a space for research and dialogue between the trade and climate policy spheres about the controversies surrounding unilateral trade measures and to foster new ideas that bridge the trade and climate/environment policy silos. The institution would primarily focus on research—it would have no authority to make binding rules, and much of its work would overlap with what the TESS is already doing. The proposal received a lukewarm response from governments in the Global North and the Global South, as it is unclear how the new institution would add value to existing diplomatic channels.
The IFTCC was officially launched during COP30 and article 57 of the final COP30 declaration mandating the establishment of dialogues on trade and climate at the 2026, 2027 and 2028 intersessional COP talks typically held in June in Bonn, Germany to further discuss the climate and trade nexus.
Article 56 of the final COP30 declaration made specific reference to unilateral climate measures stating that “…measures taken to combat climate change, including unilateral ones, should not constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international trade”. The explicit mention of unilateral measures in the declaration is evidence that countries opposing unilateral trade measures successfully negotiated for the inclusion of the term for the first time in a COP declaration during the meetings.
The signature multilateral proposal Brazil advanced ahead of COP30 is the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which it has spearheaded and for which it has already pledged $1 billion with countries including Indonesia and Norway pledging an additional $4.5 billion during the meetings. Based on a blended finance model, the proposed fund would be administered by the World Bank and blend seed capital from governments with funds raised from private investors to grow the initial funds pledged by governments through bonds, providing a stable base of funding for over 70 tropical countries to make payments per hectare to preserve forests.
The TFFF represents a multilateral alternative to the punitive regulatory approach of the EUDR, which shifts the costs of supply chain traceability associated with environmental upgrading to small-scale farmers and businesses in tropical countries who may have limited capacity to adapt to the EUDR’s regulatory requirements. While the proposal is based on a financialized model that could prove unstable , its multilateral approach, and the fact that 20 per cent of the funds are earmarked to be paid directly to indigenous and local forest communities, are important points to highlight.
Analyses of the outcomes of COP30 have highlighted how the meetings served to keep multilateralism alive and as a rallying point for countries to push forward initiatives highlighting the uneven impacts of the global green transition. On November 11, China and the Group of 77 within the UNFCCC called for the creation of a Just Transition Mechanism operating under the UNFCCC’s auspices based on the principle of a just global transition with the language of just transition being included in article 17 of the final agreement text. The inclusion of this proposal reflects the ideas of the Climate Action Network and other groups who proposed the Belem Action Mechanism and is being highlighted as a significant development of COP30.
The most contentious issue at COP30 was the phasing out of fossil fuels. The fact that it was not included in the final declaration has received much attention both by COP member states and observers around the world. However this exclusion also galvanized action by COP member states Colombia and the Netherlands to call meetings now set for April 28-29th 2026 in Santa Marta, Colombia of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, a parallel multilateral process outside of the UNFCCC system.
Brazil’s leadership of COP30 served to keep multilateral action on climate change grounded in the idea of a just global transition alive amidst the ongoing geopolitical tensions over unilateral climate measures and disagreements over phasing out fossil fuels. It is up to citizens and governments to keep fighting for the multilateral vision grounded in a just transition across the Global North and Global South that countries can get behind.
