The limits of multilateral climate policy: COP30 and the conflict between petrostates and electrostates

Jule Könneke and Ole Adolphsen

No 5/2026, SWP Comments from Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: global warming; fossil-fuel foreign policy; Donald Trump; Transition Away from Fossil Fuels (TAFF); COP30; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA); Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF); Paris Agreement; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:swpcom:338233

DOI: 10.18449/2026C05

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