After a disappointing 30th, how can the UNFCCC's COP summits be reformed?

Thirty years ago, delegates gathered in a newly reunified Berlin for COP1, with the question of whether the world’s climate pledges were sufficient. Even then, the goal of merely returning emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000 was already falling short of what the science demanded. Meanwhile, negotiators in a city still marked by the recent fall of the Berlin Wall discovered that other “walls” persisted.

As COP30 convened three decades later, those early tensions still reverberate through the negotiation halls. The science has sharpened, the impacts are more punishing, and the window for meaningful action is narrowing. Yet the question that opened the very first COP remains stubbornly familiar: Are today’s pledges enough? The answer, once again, is no.

This year, the world met in Belém, Brazil, for COP30 to confront a familiar reality—climate promises continue to outpace climate action. After 30 years of negotiations, the dominant assessment is that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP summits generate declarations but fail to deliver enough to face the climate crisis. With national pledges far off track and the 1.5°C goal slipping away, COP30 has raised doubts over whether the UNFCCC can still drive meaningful action, or whether progress will increasingly have to come from outside the COP process. What do experts propose for reform?

Success in climate terms

When asked whether three decades of COPs have translated political commitments into real-world climate action, Mariana Gomes, founder and president of the Portuguese climate collective Último Recurso, said that, in short, it wasn’t enough to tackle the pressing matters at hand.
“The COP system churns out new goals and buzzwords every year,” she said. “But implementation lags.”

Current national climate pledges (NDCs) would reduce global emissions by 17 percent by 2035, far below the 43 percent reduction needed by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C, according to the UN’s own synthesis of national climate pledges.

The question that opened the very first COP remains stubbornly familiar: Are today’s pledges enough? The answer, once again, is no.

“In practice, accountability is minimal,” Gomes continued. “Countries set self-determined commitments… but face no penalty for missing them.”

Hesham Eissa, a former Egyptian UNFCCC focal point and board member at Dcarbon Global Company, confirmed the structural gap. “There is no international body with the authority to impose sanctions or compel states to implement their plans,” he said. “Many pledges remain voluntary.”

“I think of [COP] success in human terms: did the world’s poorest communities see tangible relief? Did carbon-intensive industries immediately start shifting? Unfortunately, by those measures, past COPs have underdelivered,” Gomes said.

The outcome of COP30 in Belém, attended by the lowest number of government delegates since 2014, as the price of attending the summit increases year after year, was disappointing to many.

“The trajectory of the UNFCCC, after thirty consecutive conferences, resembles a train moving very slowly but never stopping,” Eissa added.

On climate mitigation, or action taken to reduce or prevent greenhouse gases, interviewees agreed that the summit failed to deliver. The UNFCCC summit did not provide a roadmap or a target for the global transition away from fossil fuels, despite the optimism sparked by the UAE's Consensus outcome of a “historic” COP28 in Dubai. China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and India blocked any attempt to land a fossil fuel roadmap, repeatedly rejecting and resisting any reference to such a roadmap, and leading efforts to weaken fossil fuel language during line-by-line negotiations.

This forced the COP30 text toward a fossil-free, highly diluted, and non-binding outcome. To bypass formal blocks, the Brazilian COP30 presidency promised to create different roadmaps, operating outside the UN climate regime, focused on transitioning away from fossil fuels and protecting forests. It will be supported by other countries such as Colombia, which is organising the first global conference on the issue, with results to be reported at COP31 in Turkey in 2026.

“The final [COP30] agreement disappointed many because it lacked a clear and binding commitment to phasing out fossil fuels,” Eissa said. He added, however, that in his personal assessment, a full phase-out within the next decade is unrealistic given current energy systems. “A complete abandonment of fossil fuels is an impossible dream, at least during the coming decade,” he said.

One of the most contentious issues at COP30 was adaptation finance, funding for communities and countries to build resilience to climate change. Governments agreed to a headline goal of tripling adaptation finance by a deadline of 2035 rather than 2030, and without a definitive path.

“This outcome is deeply disappointing,” Greenpeace MENA Executive Director Ghiwa Nakat said. “Without a clear baseline, defined amounts, or accountability for who will provide the money, it risks being largely symbolic.”

Nakat added that regions such as the Middle East and North Africa are already facing escalating heatwaves, water scarcity, and livelihood losses. “The target is pushed out to 2035, far too late for communities already experiencing severe impacts,” she said, citing estimates that adaptation finance must reach at least $120 billion per year by 2030.

Climate activist Harjeet Singh, founding director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, stated that “a promise to triple adaptation finance by 2035 is essentially a permission slip for a decade of neglect.” He said, “The climate crisis isn’t waiting ten years — it is burning down homes and flooding cities today.”

Singh said developing countries need over $300 billion per year alone to cope with impacts. He described intense resistance during negotiations. “The African and Arab Groups threatened to stop the talks entirely,” he said, arguing that proposals on the table were seen as attempts by wealthy countries to delay or dilute their legal obligations. “They rejected the initial offers because you cannot fight a trillion-dollar problem with pocket change,” Singh said.

Nevertheless, Singh pointed out that COP still obliges countries to face their failures.

“Did the world’s poorest communities see tangible relief? Did carbon-intensive industries immediately start shifting? Unfortunately, by those measures, past COPs have underdelivered.”

On the other hand, the Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) on Just Transition was met with applause at the COP30 closing session, paving the way for the creation of a new action mechanism. BAM is intended to serve as a hub to support countries in taking concrete steps to ensure that the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy systems is fair and equitable, an outcome strongly backed by campaigners and developing countries.

Attendees and analysts also celebrated how “multilateralism won,” as COP30 President Luiz Lula put it, despite the absence of the US, the world’s biggest emitter, from the negotiations after the Trump administration declined to send an official delegation.

Nevertheless, COP30 exposed structural dysfunction in the way negotiations take place and how decisions are reached. How far did said multilateralism go?

Rules, paralysis, and imbalances

The consensus-based decision-making model emerged repeatedly as a central structural flaw in the COP process. As the UNFCCC requires that every country must have “no objection” before a decision passes, consensus has become a blocking mechanism in favor of a minority, as happened in discussions on fossil-fuel phase-out or climate finance.

“This principle once ensured buy-in, but it now paralyzes progress,” Gomes said. She cited COP28, where language on fossil fuel phase-out was stripped from the final text, and COP30, where energy transition language proposed by the presidency faced opposition from 36 countries, according to her account from inside the negotiations.

Eissa echoed Gomes’ concern. “The objection of one or two countries is enough to freeze an entire process,” he said. “The world today is far more complex than it was when these rules were designed, national interests have become more divergent, and climate change is accelerating faster than this model can respond.”

Thirty years ago, the consensus model was approved with the backing of developed countries to ensure that decisions unfavorable to them would not be imposed through the principle of absolute majority, Eissa explained.

Beyond formal rules, interviewees described significant power imbalances inside the COP process, agreeing that the formal equality of the UN system masks deep power asymmetries.

Gomes pointed to disparities in who participates and who leads. Wealthy countries and corporate-backed organizations dominate delegations and observer spaces, while climate-vulnerable countries rarely hold COP presidencies because they lack the capacity to host. She said negotiators from small island states and least-developed countries told her their priorities only reach the agenda if a wealthy host chooses to highlight them.

Proposals on the table were seen as attempts by wealthy countries to delay or dilute their legal obligations. "You cannot fight a trillion-dollar problem with pocket change."

At COP28, half of all accredited observers came from Western Europe, North America, and Australia — regions that represent just 12% of the world’s population. Only after complaints from the Global South did the UNFCCC tweak its badge allocation for COP29, giving more spots to developing-country NGOs.

Corporate influence further distorts negotiations. Civil society counts showed more than 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists attended COP30, roughly one in every 25 participants. “The fact that fossil fuel companies are lobbying at all is offensive,” Gomes said. “These firms created the [climate] crisis.”

Singh used the same figures to underline the imbalance. “When you have 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists roaming the halls — outnumbering the delegations of the ten most vulnerable nations combined — we have allowed the arsonists to take over the fire station,” he said. These lobbyists included those from CNPC, Petrobras, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies.

Paris Agreement: not a template repeated

December also marks the 10th anniversary of COP21’s landmark Paris Agreement, which remains a touchstone for global climate policy. Intended to keep warming well below 2°C and to limit human-caused global warming to 1.5°C above the pre-industrial limit, Paris has not delivered on its most ambitious goal, but it has helped steer the world away from a catastrophic 4°C trajectory toward lower, though still dangerous, levels of warming.

However, experts consistently described the Paris Agreement as an exception rather than a pattern.

“The high of COP21 in Paris still looms large,” Gomes said. She attributed its success to a specific diplomatic approach that allowed national ownership of commitments while building trust.

Instead of a rigid treaty with uniform targets, France let each country pledge its own contribution (Nationally Determined Contributions), a “pledge-and-review” model that was more flexible. This system gave national leaders ownership of their commitments, and it broke the deadlock of the old Kyoto-style inflexibility.

Nearly 200 countries came together and adopted a landmark agreement aiming to limit warming to “well below 2°C, pursuing 1.5°C, which Gomes described as “a level of unity and ambition previously unseen.” Additionally, numerous coalitions outside the UN had been building technical cooperation for years. “But since then,” she said, “we keep rewriting Paris over and over, each time with softer verbs.”

Eissa described Paris as the product of a rare political convergence, strong scientific pressure, active leadership from major powers, and skilled French diplomacy. “It was a moment when failure was not an option,” he said.

Nakat believes COP30 illustrated how far the process has drifted from the ambition of Paris. “Words alone are no longer sufficient,” she said. “The gap between commitments and reality is widening.”

Today, Eissa said, COPs operate under very different conditions. Geopolitical tensions, energy crises, trade wars, and competition over green technology make transformational agreements far harder, he said. As a result, COPs now focus on “managing disagreements” rather than delivering breakthroughs.

In November, the UN acknowledged that exceeding the 1.5°C warming threshold is now unavoidable.

Reforming the UNFCCC COP process

Despite deep criticism, none of the interviewees argued for abandoning the UN climate system. Instead, they described a process that remains indispensable for legitimacy but increasingly misaligned with the urgency and power dynamics of the climate crisis. The UNFCCC has made climate change central to global politics and remains the only inclusive forum for all nations, indispensable for giving vulnerable nations an equal voice alongside major powers.

But all agreed that credibility now depends on reform.

Nearly 200 countries came together and adopted a landmark agreement aiming to limit warming to “well below 2°C, pursuing 1.5°C, which Gomes described as “a level of unity and ambition previously unseen.”

Gomes pointed to Último Recurso’s 2025 Manifesto for COP Reform, which lays out institutional changes intended to shift the process from repeated negotiations toward governance and follow-through. At the center of the manifesto is a proposal to modify the UNFCCC’s strict consensus rule through a “Standing Aside” mechanism, allowing a Party to formally register objections without blocking decisions supported by the rest of the membership. Gomes said consensus has “become a blocking mechanism in favor of a minority,” enabling one or two countries to dilute or derail outcomes backed by more than 190 others.

She argued that the proposal is not radical but grounded in existing international practice. Other multilateral bodies, including the World Trade Organization and the Law of the Sea framework, operate with qualified majority or soft-opposition rules, and there is no legal requirement under the UNFCCC for absolute unanimity. “We have treated consensus as sacred,” Gomes said, “even when it is actively preventing action.”

Singh argued that COP cannot carry the burden alone.

“The UNFCCC is necessary to set the goals, but it is no longer sufficient to deliver the action,” he said.

Singh also called for complementary enforcement mechanisms, including a Fossil Fuel Treaty, as well as increased legal pressure through advisory opinions from international courts such as the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Leadership structure is another target of reform, with calls for replacing the current single, rotating COP presidency with a “Collegial Presidency” composed of one developed country, one developing country, and one climate-vulnerable country. Gomes argued that the existing system systematically excludes frontline states from leadership because they lack the financial and logistical capacity to host the conference, thereby perpetuating the inequalities in whose priorities shape negotiations.

The Último Recurso manifesto also targets a different agenda-setting system. The manifesto proposes a Permanent Coordination Group of Vulnerable Countries, composed of small island states, least-developed countries, and Indigenous representatives. The group would have formal standing within the UNFCCC, guaranteed speaking rights, and the ability to inject priorities — including loss and damage, adaptation, and climate justice — into a defined share of the COP agenda, “rather than leaving them at the whim of who holds the gavel,” Gomes said, adding that the aim is not veto power but institutionalized presence.

The manifesto further proposes creating a Permanent Scientific Council of the COP, embedded directly within the UNFCCC structure. Unlike the current reliance on external IPCC reports, the council would issue pre-COP scientific opinions, assess whether proposed decisions align with current evidence, and publicly flag gaps between negotiated language and scientific reality. Gomes said this would narrow the space for political bargaining detached from evidence. “If the science says we are ten years late on coal cuts, that should not be something negotiators can negotiate away quietly,” she said.

Other interviewees echoed the need for structural redesign, even if they emphasized different mechanisms. Eissa said the current COP architecture was designed three decades ago for a phase in which the priority was creating an international framework, not managing an escalating emergency.

Attendees and analysts also celebrated how “multilateralism won,” as COP30 President Luiz Lula put it, despite the absence of the US, the world’s biggest emitter, from the negotiations after the Trump administration declined to send an official delegation.

“The process lacks binding follow-up mechanisms, strong oversight tools, and the ability to ensure implementation,” he said. He also argued that reform should focus on transforming the Global Stocktake into a politically consequential tool and establishing stable, predictable financial mechanisms independent of voluntary pledges. Without that shift, a huge gap between what is agreed upon and what is actually implemented would remain.

Reform, experts said, is also inseparable from addressing corporate influence. Gomes argued that weak conflict-of-interest rules allow fossil fuel executives to participate directly in negotiations, sometimes as part of national delegations, blurring the line between state positions and industry interests.

“If five years after a COP global emissions are still rising and vulnerable nations are still begging for help,” she said, “then no matter how successful we claim the conference was, in practice it failed the planet.”