Climate multilateralism, geopolitics, and the transition away from fossil fuels

Climate multilateralism, geopolitics, and the transition away from fossil fuels

As COP31 approaches, Professor Richard Beardsworth explores how plurilateral climate action can sustain progress on the transition away from fossil fuels when universal consensus reaches its limits. COP28 established a historic direction for international climate policy: ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner’ (Global Stocktake, para. 28(d)). The transition was kept off the agenda at COP29, but COP30 in Belém returned decisively to implementation, with the Brazilian presidency proposing a ‘transition roadmap’. The proposal, however, exposed the problem COP28 left unresolved. While parties had agreed on the direction of transition, geopolitical divisions prevented consensus on how fossil-fuel decline should be organised and accelerated. When the final decision omitted the roadmap, Colombia and the Netherlands convened the Santa Marta conference the following April, bringing willing states together outside the constraints of UNFCCC consensus, with its outcomes to be carried forward to COP31 by the COP30 presidency. Following my previous reflections on COP30 here, I want to ask what this more plural approach, and its development towards COP31, tells us about how climate multilateralism can advance where universal consensus cannot.