Katrine Tilgaard Petersen

2026 will test the credibility and direction of global cooperation on climate, including for the UNFCCC. The climate regime must demonstrate that it can make a durable and politically resilient shift, elevating the focus on implementation, delivery, and partnerships alongside consensus-based negotiations. The stakes are high.

Blog Discussions on a roadmap in Belém can be traced back to COP26 in Glasgow, where the commitment to coal phasedown represented the first reference to a fossil fuel in a UNFCCC decision text – nearly 30 years after the process first began. Photo from Adobe Stock. 10 Dec 2025 COP30 saw a major coalition of countries push for a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels.

Collective action is bending the emissions curve downwards, but not nearly fast enough. As countries gather for COP30 in Belém, leaders must build on their recent statement to strengthen political confidence in the inevitability of the shift to clean energy, demonstrating real-world progress that goes beyond their NDCs and showing genuine commitment to accelerate the transitions to clean energy globally.