W(h)ither Climate “Multilateralism”?

June was a busy month in climate change world. The annual inter-sessional meetings of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)/Paris Agreement took place in Bonn. London hosted its annual Climate Action Week. The Ministerial on Climate Action (“MOCA”), co-led by the European Union, Canada, and China, took place in Brussels. And the Our Ocean Conference, which was held this year in Mombasa, Kenya, focused in part on linkages between climate change and the ocean.

Formal and/or informal discussions covered the lofty (geopolitics), the scary (potential climate tipping points), the highly technical (adaptation indicators), the controversial (AI data centers), the sectoral (sustainable shipping), the essential (critical minerals), the financial (carbon markets), the cross-cutting (climate change and trade), and everything in between.

The state of climate “multilateralism” was also a frequent subject of panels, closed-door gatherings, and informal chats over coffee. Concerns these days about “multilateralism” are, of course, not limited to climate change but pervade all manner of subjects and international institutions. Yet the topic seems to raise particular issues in the climate space, given the very high bar for reaching agreement in the formal treaty process, the significant role of sub-national and private sector actors in climate action, and the vast array of cooperative activities among sub-sets of Parties to the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement.

Here I seek to unpack some of the key issues that the current discussions do or, perhaps, should address.

What is meant by “multilateralism” in the climate context?

One of the challenging aspects of discussing “multilateralism” is that people use the term in several different ways. We tend to know “multilateral” when we see it, but the “ism” introduces a wide variety of meanings and creates substantial confusion.

One question is whether the idea is more of a philosophical concept (such as general support for international agreements and institutions) or a matter of numbers (such as how many participating States in a given treaty/arrangement), and, if the latter, whether multilateralism stands in contrast to unilateralism/bilateralism (many versus one/two) or to plurilateralism (global versus numerous).

Another question is whether multilateralism has a distinct meaning in the climate field. If so, is the meaning stricter than elsewhere, given that the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement regime has nearly universal adherence and operates by consensus? Or is it looser, given that the achievement of global climate goals requires diverse cooperative efforts and a wide variety of actors, including, e.g., sub-national governments, the private sector, and sub-groups of interested Parties?

Given the confusion, one takeaway from recent discussions is the need to press speakers to define their terms. Otherwise, they are liable to talk past each other or to simply use the term as a proxy, describing processes they like as reflecting multilateralism and those they oppose as an attack on multilateralism.

Is the climate “multilateralism” issue new?

Discussions about “multilateralism” in the climate space are not new. However, they have evolved over time.

• The perceived failure of the 2009 Conference of the Parties (“COP”) in Copenhagen, which issued an accord that was significant but had no binding commitments and was not formally adopted, put extra pressure on the subsequent negotiation of the Paris Agreement as a critical test of “multilateralism.” In that context, the term was invoked as a high-level exhortation for the world to come together to address a matter of extreme global importance. In that same regard, the successful adoption of the Paris Agreement was hailed as a triumph of multilateralism.
• The cooperative efforts among sub-national and non-State actors that emerged in support of the Paris Agreement goals raised the question whether they should be considered new modes of “multilateralism.” After all, these efforts involved actors from all over the world in pursuit of multilaterally agreed goals. There was not necessarily any notable conclusion from such discussions, but it is interesting to note that there did not appear to be any particular backlash to such efforts — likely because they did not involve States and were therefore not perceived as any kind of threat to the intergovernmental process.

Current discussions concerning climate “multilateralism” generally focus on two distinct but related issues:

• The first issue relates to the COP, specifically formal decision-making by the Parties to the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement. The regime operates by consensus (or, in practice, something close to it). Given the difficulty of reaching consensus among nearly 200 Parties within the formal COP process, particularly recently, the question has arisen whether significant COP decision-making, perhaps the ultimate form of climate “multilateralism,” may have run its course.
• The second issue is how to think about the many climate-related initiatives and coalitions among sub-sets of Parties that are not formally agreed as part of the COP process. Such “informal,” “side,” or “outside” efforts are technically multilateral, even if not global, yet continue to raise issues concerning how they fit into the climate multilateralism ecosystem.

Is COP “multilateralism” dead? Or at least endangered?

Taking the COP issue first, negotiated outcomes that reflect consensus among nearly 200 Parties have been an important tool for sending signals to the market, for responding to science, for mobilizing finance, for promoting accountability, and otherwise driving climate action.

However, one would be forgiven for worrying about the future ability of the Parties to make meaningful progress through consensus decisions. As difficult as it was before 2025 to galvanize nearly the entire world toward agreed outcomes, it has arguably become even more difficult. Between the absence of a climate-friendly United States, tumultuous geopolitics, climate backlash in some quarters, and the underwhelming COP 30 negotiated outcome, it would not be unreasonable to conclude that COP multilateralism, as reflected in significant consensus decisions such as the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the Glasgow Climate Pact, the first Global Stocktake (the assessment of aggregate progress under the Paris Agreement), or funding arrangements for responding to loss and damage, is a thing of the past.

At the same time, one could reasonably argue that it would be incorrect — or at least premature — to draw the conclusion that COP multilateralism is over.

• It is worth recalling, particularly for newer participants in climate processes, that it has always been very difficult to reach consensus. States have extremely different national circumstances relevant to climate change, sometimes seemingly irreconcilable ones, yet they have managed over and over again to converge on negotiated outcomes — through leadership, persistence, and a wealth of problem-solving tools. There is a tendency to look back at the creation of past significant outcomes, such as the Kyoto Protocol or the Paris Agreement, as somehow easy — because the conditions were less fraught — but, in the case of Paris, for example, it took about seven years of hard, frustrating work to get there, with many ups and downs along the way.
• To the extent that commenters point to the weak COP 30 outcome negotiated in 2025 as evidence of a paradigm shift, it is not clear that COP 30 necessarily represents the new normal. Although it is true that the Parties did not reach consensus to develop a roadmap on “transitioning away from fossil fuels,” the proposal to do so was raised late in the game, without the necessary foundation being laid. Further, it was never quite realistic to assume that it would work to pluck out just one element (particularly the most contentious one) from a heavily negotiated paragraph in the Dubai COP’s Global Stocktake decision. The fact that this specific proposal did not succeed does not necessarily mean that future COPs are doomed to failure.

It can also be risky to draw overly broad conclusions from a single climate-related conference. In the case of the International Maritime Organization, for example, last fall’s highly publicized divisive meeting on measures to promote decarbonization of the international shipping sector was greeted with alarm. However, the resumed session a few months later — which received far less attention — was quite constructive. And the much-maligned Copenhagen outcome was largely rescued the following year, in Cancun, and ultimately laid the groundwork for the Paris Agreement.

Finally, one of the dangers of declaring the demise of COP multilateralism is that it may become a self-fulfilling prophesy. The more Parties give up on even trying to secure consensus outcomes, because it seems hopeless, the truer it may become that one loses a key tool in driving climate action. It also runs the risk of letting key States off the hook, as some of the largest economies have been the most reluctant to join non-consensus initiatives/coalitions.

Would it help to get rid of consensus?

An issue worth mentioning, because it continues to be raised, is whether a change in COP procedure is in order.

Since the very beginning of the UNFCCC regime, many Parties and observers have supported super-majority voting in order to facilitate decision-making. However, because the rules of procedure themselves needed to be adopted by consensus, and not all Parties agreed with super-majority voting, the rules were provisionally adopted on all topics except for decision-making. As a result, the Parties have been operating for decades under a default rule of consensus or something very close to it.

Some continue to call for the UNFCCC/Paris regime to move from consensus to super-majority voting (e.g., 2/3 of the Parties) in order to make it much harder for a Party or group of Parties to block agreement. Setting aside the fact that one would need consensus of the Parties to move away from consensus (which seems highly unlikely), there is a deeper question whether super-majority voting would actually strengthen COP outcomes.

It would seem, at least on the face of it, that voting would be an advance over the current need to reach consensus.

• It would likely not only improve the prospects for securing negotiated outcomes but also enable those outcomes to be more ambitious — avoiding the “least common denominator” effect.
• Parties on the defensive would presumably have to try harder to work out agreement lest they be out-voted, as opposed to simply saying no.
• For those concerned about the proliferation of processes outside the COP (see below), facilitating agreement within the COP could cut down on the need for Parties to pursue outside processes. At a minimum, Parties looking to raise ambition might be more willing to at least try for a negotiated outcome before pursuing a smaller coalition of Parties.

On the other hand:

• One of the advantages of a consensus decision is the strength of the signal it sends. Even if it is weaker substantively than it might have been through a voting process, the fact that essentially the entire world has agreed on X can be powerful. Decisions taken by fewer than all the Parties could end up sending a weaker signal, particularly if the out-voted Parties included critically relevant ones.
• Parties might be less willing to implement a decision that they voted against.
• Parties might approach negotiations differently, i.e., directly work to achieve the super-majority, rather than at least try to address the issues and concerns of potential opponents.

Moving to voting is likely a moot point, given that it takes consensus to move away from consensus. In any event, it would be helpful for discussions about “consensus versus voting” to dig more deeply into the various pros and cons.

How should we think about the “outside” initiatives/coalitions in relation to “multilateralism”?

Turning to the initiatives and coalitions launched outside the formal COP process (e.g., the Global Methane Pledge, the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, the Declaration to Triple Nuclear Energy, the Forest & Climate Leaders’ Partnership, the Green Shipping Challenge), these efforts have proliferated in recent years. They generally involve some or many, but not all, Parties (and, in some cases, non-State actors as well) and focus on a particular gas, sector, or other slice of the climate challenge. Many view them as forms of multilateralism themselves or at least operating in support of COP multilateralism, given that they generally pursue globally agreed goals.

At the same time, there are those who not only consider COP decision-making the exclusive form of climate multilateralism but appear to think of initiatives/coalitions outside the formal COP process as somehow at odds with multilateralism, i.e., as end-runs around the COP and its legitimate consensus decision-making process.

In some cases, States may in fact be motivated to pursue informal approaches to climate cooperation because of the difficulty of securing consensus at a COP, but there are many other reasons why States have been pursuing alternative approaches.

• They may seek to implement a decision already taken through the COP process.
• They may want to be able to include sub-national entities or the private sector.
• They may consider that not all States are necessary or even appropriate for the pursuit or implementation of a particular goal (e.g., in a sector that involves some States more than others).
• They may consider that the cooperation involves topics that are not yet ripe for bringing to the COP process, but could eventually go there if/when critical mass is achieved.
• They may be interested in cooperation that straddles climate change and other topics that fall outside the COP mandate.
• They may consider that informal cooperation is easier to manage and evolve than formal approaches.
• Perhaps most importantly, given the high ambition level of the Paris goals, and the fact that the world is not yet on track to achieve them, informal climate cooperation is a necessary complement to formally agreed COP actions.

Even if outside cooperation is motivated purely by the difficulty of securing consensus, that does not necessarily make it less than legitimate.

• It is a difficult position for a State to maintain that it should be able to block an outcome at a COP and also deem it less than legitimate if it takes place outside the COP.
• Moreover, nowhere is it written that “multilateralism” must be viewed narrowly as cooperation agreed by consensus through the COP process.

It should also be noted that, unlike the rigidly divided “innie” and “outie” in the TV show Severance, there is no such divide between the “inside” COP decisions and the “outside” initiatives/coalitions; rather, there has been an iterative, mutually reinforcing relationship between the two. For example:

• The “inside” Dubai COP decision on the first Global Stocktake identified various global efforts that would be needed to keep a 1.5 degree C limit on temperature rise within reach. Various “outside” initiatives seek to implement action related to such global efforts, e.g., the Global Offshore Wind Alliance, the Global Energy Storage and Grids Pledge.
• The “outside” Global Methane Pledge, by raising awareness of the importance of reducing methane emissions, helped secure subsequent support for “inside” methane-related decisions at the COP, including encouraging the inclusion of all greenhouse gases in 2035 nationally determined contributions.

In light of the above, the stronger arguments appear to favor those who consider informal/side/outside initiatives and coalitions forms of multilateralism or, at a minimum, in support of COP multilateralism. Many might even consider the relationship to “multilateralism” an irrelevant question, given the urgent need to enlarge, rather than restrict, the pursuit of climate action.

What about Brazil’s concept of “two-tier multilateralism”?

COP 30 in Belém, Brazil, brought to a head the relationship between the difficulty of achieving consensus inside the COP process and the pursuit of cooperation outside the process. As noted above, the Parties could not agree to develop a roadmap on “transitioning away from fossil fuels.” As a result, the Brazilian COP Presidency announced its intention to pursue such a roadmap on the topic on its own initiative (in addition to one on combating deforestation). Further, Colombia and the Netherlands announced their intention to host a meeting on the transition away from fossil fuels, which took place in April in Santa Marta, Colombia. The “Santa Marta” initiative in particular catalyzed substantial positive energy around the idea of pursuing coalitions of the “willing” or “doing,” even on issues beyond transitioning away from fossil fuels.

Perhaps fearing a backlash to its own plans, the Brazilian Presidency put forward a concept of “two tier multilateralism.” The two tiers would operate at “two complementary speeds,” one remaining “anchored in consensus,” the other focused on “implementation.” Brazil speaks of the consensus COP process as, among other things, ensuring “legitimacy.”

The basic premise, i.e., that climate cooperation outside the formal COP process is a welcome and necessary form of multilateralism, is certainly helpful in relation to those contesting it. It acknowledges the reality that, in many areas, sub-groups of Parties are able to progress more quickly and/or more ambitiously than all Parties. If one were to take issue with the details, one might argue:

• that the consensus COP process does not have a monopoly on “legitimacy”;
• that outside initiatives/coalitions have not only just become necessary, due to an increasing pivot to implementation, but have been serving an important complementary role for several years; and
• that there is not a clean divide between policy direction and implementation. Some consensus COP outcomes are arguably forms of implementation, e.g., the Global Stocktake decision identifies various global efforts to implement the 1.5 degree C limit on warming, while some outside efforts arguably reflect policy direction — through new goals and/or commitments.

Nevertheless, the basic point — that there is a need for multiple approaches and that there is no contradiction between the formal and the informal, between the inside and the outside — coming, as it does, from the COP Presidency and a major developing country, is a useful contribution to the ongoing conversation.

Does that mean the current approach to “outside” initiatives/coalitions is ideal?

Even if climate cooperation outside the COP process passes the multilateralism test, it does not necessarily mean it is ideal. Among other things, there are far too many processes, they often overlap, and States frequently get political credit for announcing their participation in various initiatives with little or no follow-through. While some view the situation as helpfully diffuse (“let a thousand flowers bloom”), others view it as “fragmented” and/or in desperate need of improvement. Indeed, many current discussions are focused on ways to:

• better align the inside and outside tracks (such as Brazil’s helpful harmonization of “action” topics with the topics reflected in the Dubai COP’s Global Stocktake decision);
• streamline outside efforts;
• make such efforts more coherent;
• promote greater accountability when it comes to the implementation of such efforts; and
• otherwise make the most effective use of the enthusiasm among many States to go further and faster.

The more conversations about “multilateralism” can focus on such practical issues, define terms more clearly, and consider whether the lens of “multilateralism” is even a fruitful way to think about international climate cooperation, the more likely such conversations will help point toward the best combination of “inside” and “outside” efforts to address a top global challenge of our time.