As the consensus on climate action frays, the world needs to stop waiting for negotiations and start implementing what has already been agreed.
That is according to the Brazilian diplomat André Corrêa do Lago. The president of COP30 in Brazil last year, he remains the incumbent for the UN’s flagship climate change summit until COP31 this November, when Türkiye will take over.
Corrêa do Lago told Dialogue Earth that climate diplomacy now needs to place greater emphasis on action and cooperation among groups of countries, businesses and cities: “For decisions you need consensus, for implementation you don’t.”
Corrêa do Lago also highlighted the “important challenge” posed by the withdrawal of the US from several climate agreements earlier this year, and warned of a growing backlash against the costs of climate action.
At COP30, held in Brazil’s Amazonian city of Belém, countries agreed to a target of tripling finance for adaptation to climate change. Meanwhile, a “just transition” mechanism was created, aimed at ensuring workers and communities are not left behind in the shift from fossil fuels. But the summit ultimately failed to reach a consensus on fossil fuels, or on deforestation.
International climate negotiations have long relied on consensus among nearly 200 countries. It has imbued any resulting agreements with strong legitimacy but also made progress slow and politically complex. Corrêa do Lago said the real breakthrough at COP30 was not just a greater focus on implementation, but a clearer separation between implementation and negotiation.
“[Consensus] is a wonderful thing because it gives enormous strength to what is approved,” he said. “But it is also a way of not allowing some things to progress.”
Beyond consensus
Corrêa do Lago points out that countries can act according to their own circumstances and in line with what they have already agreed; smaller coalitions of nations with similar interests can move forward together on issues like the energy transition or deforestation.
“There are many ways of doing the right thing,” Corrêa do Lago said. “And according to each country, it may be completely different.”
That stronger focus on implementation is essential, he argued, because time is running out. “We believe very strongly in science,” Corrêa do Lago said. “And science is telling us that we have very little time.”
A greater emphasis on implementation could also help sustain momentum when political divisions disrupt international cooperation. In January, the US president Donald Trump announced his administration was pulling the world’s largest economy out of 66 international bodies, including several focused on climate, biodiversity and energy.
Corrêa do Lago said the role of the US as both a major emitter and a source of important technological, business and civil-society solutions made this “obviously an important challenge”. But he stressed that climate action in the US extends far beyond its federal government.
There are many ways of doing the right thing, and according to each country, it may be completely different
“One thing is what the government says, and the other thing is what the communities or the business or the scientific community do,” he said. Negotiations may be the preserve of the government, he added, but “in the action agenda” everybody can participate – be it businesses, universities, scientists, or the authorities of an entire state, like California.
Working to implement agreed climate measures could help fill the gap created by these divisions. Several agreements from past climate COPs have not been fully carried out. Targets for climate adaptation finance, for example, have repeatedly been missed, including a pledge made at COP26 in 2021 to double funding by 2025. Meanwhile, new oil and gas licences continue to be approved, despite the COP28 agreement to transition away from fossil fuels.
A renewed focus on implementation could also help counter a growing assault on the “economic logic” of climate action, he said. While efforts to discredit climate science are not new, Corrêa do Lago argued that this energy has increasingly shifted towards attacking the financial case for solving the crisis.
“That is, I think, maybe even more dangerous,” he said.
Climate action has been pushed down the political agenda in several countries, as governments grapple with overlapping economic, security and cost-of-living crises. In Corrêa do Lago’s native Brazil, the current government presents itself as a climate leader. Yet even here, development priorities include fossil fuel expansion, and continue to compete with emissions-reduction goals.
There has also been growing pushback against the concept of net zero in Global North countries such as the United Kingdom, while right wing think-tanks have continued attempts at what critics describe as “climate obstruction”.
“First it was a questioning of science, and then a questioning of the solution,” Corrêa do Lago said. “I believe that a focus on implementation is what gives us examples that show that the economic solutions do work.”
Roadmaps and contradictions
Corrêa do Lago described the differentiation between negotiation and implementation as one of the “strongest achievements” of COP30. He is now promoting two roadmaps: one on reducing deforestation and another on transitioning away from fossil fuels. They are parallel initiatives that build on existing commitments and are open to input from governments and other stakeholders.
“We decided to do independent roadmaps, so that we advance on it. The idea of the roadmaps is to bring together elements that will help countries to maybe, at some moment, find consensus.”
This sits alongside the COP29 mandate to develop a roadmap to mobilise USD 1.3 trillion in climate finance per year by 2035, which Corrêa do Lago is also working to advance.
To promote the roadmaps, in February Corrêa do Lago visited Türkiye, where COP31 will take place in the coastal city of Antalya. Following a long dispute over the presidency, Australia will lead COP31’s pre-talks with Pacific nations.
Brazil is also developing a national roadmap to translate the country’s climate leadership into a “just and planned” transition – as promised by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in December, shortly after COP30. The plan was expected in early February, but no implementation framework has yet been released.
The Climate Observatory (OC), a coalition of Brazilian civil society organisations, has criticised both the government’s roadmap and the COP30 initiatives. In a letter addressed to Corrêa do Lago, it cautioned that the international roadmaps risk becoming “another document destined to gather dust”. In separate recommendations on the domestic plan, it warned that current policies remain “contradictory” to decarbonisation, and rejected the logic that expanding oil production could finance the energy transition – an approach advanced by Lula.
Corrêa do Lago said such contradictions are not unique to Brazil.
“No country has a unified vision of how to progress in this agenda,” he said, noting governments are often divided across ministries with competing priorities. He added that reliance on fossil fuel revenues reflects limited alternatives: “We may need that because we have not found other ways to get financing for the transition.”
The COP30 agenda also faces a potential rival – or ally – in Colombia. In April, the city of Santa Marta on the country’s Caribbean coast will host the First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels. This initiative has been spearheaded by Colombia and the Netherlands. It remains to be seen what the conference will achieve, and how any potential agreement there could interact with COP30’s own roadmap.
Corrêa do Lago noted that the event’s originally proposed language of “phasing out” fossil fuels has been dropped in favour of “transitioning away” – a form of wordplay that has shaped COP negotiations, too.
“It’s not us against them,” he added. “It will be very interesting to see what happens with Santa Marta. They are parallel processes. They are complementary, but they are parallel.”
Looking ahead, Corrêa do Lago said he is optimistic this stronger focus on implementation and action will endure.
“We have talked a lot with Türkiye and Australia, and one of the things that they have already incorporated – and that I think is very important – is this new structure of the action agenda, based on implementation,” he said. “The fact is that, if we have little time, we should explore all those solutions as much as possible.”
