The fossil-fuel foreign policy of the United States under President Donald Trump has intensified the conflict between petrostates and electrostates in international climate politics. At COP30 in Belém in November 2025, this cleavage was particularly evident in the dispute over a roadmap for the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF). While an increasing number of countries regard TAFF as a necessary consequence of the global energy transition, fossil fuel producers prevented any substantive progress being made. The conference highlighted the structural limits of the capacity of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to mediate this distributional conflict. As a result, the EU faces a strategic dilemma: to further politicise the COP process around TAFF or to prioritise the stabilisation of key mechanisms of the Paris Agreement. Whether it can overcome that dilemma will become apparent during the run-up to the next global stocktake, which is due at COP33 in India in 2028.
Ten years after the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the formation of two blocs – petrostates and electrostates – has become a structuring factor in geopolitics and international climate policy. Profound political and economic shifts underlie this division: several large economies are accelerating the transition to electrified systems and basing both their energy security and their international influence on clean tech. China is the prime example, with its prominent position in green supply chains and rapid expansion of renewable energies. Other states – including, most recently, the US – are pursuing a fossil-fuel foreign policy that secures their existing rent structures and ensures their ability to expand or preserve dependencies around the globe.
This bloc formation between electrostates and petrostates shaped the political dynamics of the 30th UN Climate Change Conference. In fact, its influence had already been evident during the run-up to COP30, when the US, together with Saudi Arabia, prevented an agreement on the decarbonisation of international shipping being reached. Although Washington did not send an official delegation, the Trump administration exerted pressure behind the scenes both before and during the conference, targeting small Caribbean island states, in particular. By withdrawing from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Trump administration wants to ensure that the US will not be able to participate in climate negotiations in the long run. In Belém, other petrostates, having traditionally rejected ambitious decisions, felt vindicated in their stance. That applied, not least, to Russia, which once again vociferously defended its positions after having remained on the sidelines for several years.
Against this background, the debate on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF) became the central political focal point of the bloc formation at COP30. While a growing number of countries see TAFF as a necessary consequence of the global energy transition, fossil fuel producers view it as a threat to their economic and geopolitical standing. COP30 made clear that the structural framework of the UNFCCC is far from being able to address this conflict in a productive way and translate it into robust decisions. The consensus principle and the ongoing formal separation between industrialised and developing countries are allowing a small group of states to prevent progress even when broad majorities do fundamentally exist. Thus, the question of whether and how TAFF can be negotiated in the multilateral climate regime is becoming a litmus test for the functioning of the UNFCCC as a whole.
The results of COP30
The official COP30 agenda included a number of technical negotiating points on which at least some, albeit limited, progress was made. Among the results achieved were the agreements reached on the indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), on the establishment of a Mechanism for a Just Transition and on the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF – see SWP Comment 1/2026). This demonstrates that, even under difficult geopolitical conditions, the multilateral climate process remains capable of action.
Inadequate Nationally Determined Contributions
In the run-up to COP30, the parties to the Paris Agreement were asked for a third time to submit new or updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Although the NDCs themselves were not included on the official agenda, the conference marked an important moment in the five-year ambition cycle of the Agreement (SWP Comment 33/2024).
Overall, the NDCs for 2030 and 2035 submitted before the conference were barely more ambitious than the previous generation of contributions. Together with the renewed withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement, the latest commitments would keep the world on a warming path of around 2.6 degrees Celsius until the end of the century. Moreover, only about two-thirds of the signatory states submitted new or updated NDCs; major emitters such as India and Saudi Arabia failed to submit any contributions before the conference; and China’s reduction target was low – just 7–10 per cent by 2035.
The EU linked its own NDC to the internal process for setting the 2040 climate target (SWP Comment 14/2024), and its members were able to agree on a common position only just before COP30. In the run-up to the conference, there was virtually no coordinated ambition diplomacy, unlike ahead of COP26 in Glasgow and the second round of NDCs. Targeted attempts to put pressure on hesitant states through political signalling or joint announcements were all but lacking. COP30 confirmed that the ambition mechanism of the Paris Agreement has little leverage without active political support – and that despite the UN having recently acknowledged for the first time that the target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is likely to be breached.
The Mutirão decision
Nevertheless, the Brazilian COP Presidency managed to make full use of its room for manoeuvre and address issues not included on the formal agenda. The starting point was what has become the almost routine dispute over the adoption of the agenda at the beginning of the conference. The group of like-minded developing countries (LMDCs) once again proposed that the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) be included on the COP agenda for discussion in order to problematise it as a “unilateral trade measure” that is detrimental to international climate cooperation. They also requested a separate agenda item on Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which regulates the financing obligations of industrialised countries, to tackle what they consider to be the insufficient climate finance targets that were set in 2024.
A novelty was that the EU, too, introduced its own agenda item, which addressed transparency and reporting (Article 13), while the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) called for a review of the status of NDCs. Thus, the so-called progressive coalition sought to promote two issues – ambition and transparency – that were directly pitted against the two advanced by the LMDCs – trade and financing.
For its part, the Brazilian Presidency made the conscious decision to depart from the usual procedure of informally sounding out delegations about the proposals and postponing any discussion about them in the absence of consensus. Instead, all four issues were discussed together in a consultation lasting several days. Ultimately, this new approach resulted in the so-called Mutirão decision, which, though not a classic cover decision, led to the controversial issues being put on the agenda. In this way, the technical nature of the remaining agenda items could be offset and the relevance of the conference ensured.
In the end, the Mutirão decision proved to be the most important outcome of COP30. It provides for a number of new dialogue and work formats, even if the mandates are characterised by vague wording and a high degree of ambiguity. A new work programme is to facilitate discussions over a two-year period that will seek to increase climate financing, with a focus on public funds. At the same time, the volume of funding for adaptation measures – a key demand of many developing countries – is to be tripled by 2035.
In addition, three annual dialogue formats have been established to discuss trade measures and climate cooperation. For the EU, this will mean defending the CBAM as a climate policy instrument. The “Global Implementation Accelerator”, a voluntary format led by the Brazilian Presidency, aims to link NDCs to support measures. In addition, the “Belém Mission to 1.5” will monitor and report on overall progress towards implementing the NDCs. The mission is to be headed by the presidencies of COP30–32.
Also noteworthy is a COP decision that implicitly acknowledges for the first time that global warming is likely to overshoot the 1.5 degrees Celsius target by the early 2030s (SWP Comment 47/2025). Finally, the majority of countries – against resistance from the LMDCs – defended the role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the provider of the “best available science”.
Roadmap for transitioning away from fossil fuels
However, though not part of the consultations on the Mutirão decision, the most contentious issue of the conference was a possible roadmap for TAFF – one that would build on and further operationalise the energy package that resulted from the first global stocktake at COP28 in Dubai in 2023. At that conference, “transitioning away from fossil fuels” was explicitly mentioned for the first time in a COP resolution. Since then, Saudi Arabia, in particular, has systematically fought against any further reference to the term “transitioning away”, while the EU and its allies want it to be established as a guiding principle for the energy transition.
The EU had not included a TAFF roadmap among its priorities for COP30. Even within the Brazilian government, there were differing assessments as to whether such a roadmap could be realised. While the Foreign Ministry, which is the responsible agency for Brazil’s COP Presidency, treated the issue with caution, Environment Minister Marina Silva publicly pushed for a stronger TAFF anchoring. Surprisingly, President Lula took up that position in his opening speech and thereby endowed the debate with political momentum. In the second week of negotiations, a small group of countries led by Colombia and the EU attempted to push forward a TAFF roadmap. Although the discussions gained traction in informal formats and in the media coverage, they were not part of the formal negotiations for most of the conference.
EU on the defensive
COP30 marks the EU’s strongest attempt to date to make TAFF the main political theme of the COP process. Until then, the had focused its efforts on expanding renewable energies – for example, through the inclusion of sub-targets on batteries and grids in the energy package. However, the dynamics in Belém showed how high the hurdles are for a decision on TAFF to be reached as part of the UNFCCC process and how limited Europe’s influence is under the current geopolitical conditions.
Instead of acting from a position of relative strength, the EU entered the negotiations from a position of structural weakness. As a result of the late submission of its own NDC, internal disagreements over its scope and design, growing domestic opposition to climate protection measures and the funding cuts for international support measures, Europe’s room for manoeuvre was limited ahead of the conference. While Italy and Poland allowed themselves to be persuaded and brought on board, enabling the EU to present a united front in support of a TAFF roadmap, an agreement was not reached until the end of the second week of negotiations, which was too late. Moreover, the EU delegation included a large number of new staff who were not yet used to working with one another. Even though the EU was able to more clearly define its role during the course of the conference, it could not avoid leaving the impression that the shift to promoting TAFF had been undertaken at relatively short notice and without sufficient preparation.
Progressive coalition under pressure
Against this backdrop, the EU found it increasingly difficult to form a broad progressive alliance. Ongoing criticism of the CBAM, particularly from India and other LMDCs, put a strain on diplomatic resources and shaped the political environment. At the same time, it was evident in almost all strands of the negotiations – and particularly in the Mutirão discussions – that many developing countries were not happy with the climate finance target agreed at COP29.
Delegations from small island states and other particularly vulnerable countries – which, traditionally, are allies of the EU – expressed concern that the Union would use adaptation and financing issues as bargaining chips to achieve the strongest possible TAFF wording. The renewed withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement further exacerbated the tensions: the EU became the focus of criticism from developing countries and was no longer able to position itself behind the restrictive line that Washington had usually drawn on financing issues in the past. In addition, the EU was confronted with expectations that could be met only to a limited extent owing to the limited fiscal leeway.
About the Authors:
Ole Adolphsen is a project assistant at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, where he works at the Global Issues Division.
Jule Könneke works for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin, where she leads the project on German climate diplomacy in the context of the European Green Deal and researches the intersection of energy, environment, and global governance.