The conclusion of the COP-30 has confirmed a painful reality: the multilateral climate regime, in its current form, is suffering from structural exhaustion. Despite the urgency mandated by extreme weather events and the warnings that current trajectories, as Guterres said, are a “death sentence,” the summit concluded without a decisive roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, which weren’t even directly mentioned in the final document due to the petrostates’ veto.

Belém must serve as a diagnostic pivot point. The failure to mention fossil fuels in the final text is not just a lack of political will, but rather a symptom of a decayed international order that, as Goddard noted, prioritizes universal inclusion and legalistic proceduralism over pluralism, flexibility, and efficacy, leading to a structural stagnation that not only doesn’t allow progress, it doesn’t even enable decisions to be taken.

The summit thus exposed the limits of this approach: a consensus-based model where the pace of the convoy is dictated by its slowest ship. With the geopolitical landscape fractured and the decline of multilateralism, the expectation that 198 States can unanimously agree to economic self-sacrifice is, by definition, structurally naive. In this sense, the EU, historically the normative anchor of these talks, appeared isolated in Brazil with diminished leverage and credibility.

The way out of the current climate impasse requires a strategic reconfiguration of climate governance, through a bifurcation of its regime: distinct tracks for mitigation and equity. In terms of mitigation, to save the climate agenda, we must abandon the legalistic fetishization of universal consensus and embrace instead a more political, flexible, and pragmatic-oriented minilateralism—that is, group cooperation between like-minded nations. In terms of equity, climate governance must find ways to rebuild the North–South legitimacy cooperation: COP must be refocused towards funding and mutual trust, while the EU has to temper its regulatory power with legal empathy.

First, regarding mitigation and the phase-out of fossil fuels, we must move to minilateralism. A durable and functional order must exchange proceduralism for pragmatism and universalism for pluralism. If, under this frame, petrostates can block the exit strategy from the fossil fuel era, then the countries pushing against climate change must organize outside it. The initiative by Colombia and the Netherlands to convene a conference in 2026 dedicated exclusively to phasing out fossil fuels is a viable alternative, as this sort of informal “climate club approach” prevents the lowest common denominator from dictating global survival.

But is this strategically feasible? For decades, climate governance has been modelled on the tragedy-of-the-commons framework, presuming that the primary barrier to action was free-riding, which required a universal, binding treaty to address the issue. However, an alternative is possible, borrowing from Hale’s concept, through catalytic (pluralist) cooperation. The real challenge is creating incentives for first-movers to act through joint products, such as energy security or health benefits, and increasing returns, through institutional learning or economies of scale in technology costs. This will thus enable a complete change of the incentives to act, abandoning the structural chains of the tragedy-of-the-commons frame.

Second, while mitigation moves to smaller and agile clubs, the COP process should be refocused primarily on equity—specifically, on adaptation and loss-and-damage. This reframing should focus on ensuring funding, fair burden sharing, and accountability, thus empowering the more vulnerable States. This is where the legitimacy of the UN is indispensable. The North-South bargain is fractured as the West failed to deliver the yearly $100 billion promised in 2009, while demanding that developing nations leapfrog the fossil-fuelled development path the West enjoyed. As long as the Global North focuses on mitigation targets while ignoring the financial reality of the Global South, the trust required for efficient transnational governance will remain broken. 

Following this need to achieve equity and thus trust, we must recognize that the Brussels Effect—the EU’s ability to externalize its regulatory standards—remains a potent tool, but it carries high diplomatic risks. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a great mechanism for levelling the playing field, although the Global South views it as both carbon colonialism and green protectionism. To prevent reproducing neo-colonial dynamics, the EU must exercise what Nicolaidis and Garcia Bercero call legal empathy: engaging Global South countries as agents in a calibrated dialogue (giving them a sense of agency) rather than subjects of conditionality, thereby aligning power projection with legitimacy and mutual trust. A good way to do this would be to channel CBAM revenues back into decarbonization efforts in the Global South, transforming a coercive trade instrument into a mechanism of solidarity.

We cannot afford another decade of euphemisms where “net-zero” masks the continued use of fossil fuels, and where interstate inequality isn’t considered in the fight against climate change. The future of climate governance lies in a fragmented but functional system: aggressive mitigation alliances for those States and other international actors with the political will to do so, a UN forum dedicated to the financial justice and the use of legal empathy required to keep the Global South afloat and the regime legitimized.

Being good ancestors requires us to look beyond the procedural comforts of the past and build the messy, pluralistic, and equitable governance structures that can actually deliver a future. Let’s embrace governance uncertainty before the certainty of climatic disaster ends the planet.