THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2026 13 sector saw notable advances: new green shipping corridors, accelerated methanolfueled fleet deployment, commitments to reduce black carbon, and the launch of an Oceans Task Force integrating marine solutions into national climate plans. Looking ahead, parties agreed that COP31 will be hosted by Türkiye in Antalya, with Australia assuming the presidency. COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago said Belém must be remembered not as an endpoint but as “the beginning of a decade of turning the game,” even as many participants left uncertain about the path forward. n This issue of Talking Points was compiled by Mark Parkhomenko. Sierra Leone criticized newly approved adaptation indicators as “unclear” and “unmeasurable,” and the EU, cornered after agreeing to extend the finance tripling target to 2035, admitted it had achieved little on mitigation ambition. Observers pointed to the widening geopolitical divides and growing doubts about the COP model itself. Amid tense all-night negotiations, questions resurfaced about whether a consensus-based process can still deliver meaningful progress in a rapidly warming world. Trade also emerged for the first time as a major negotiating theme, prompting COP30 to launch a new dialogue on aligning climate and trade policies ahead of future talks. Despite the tensions, the maritime Union (EU), pressed for a binding global road map to transition away from coal, oil, and gas. Major oil-producing states, supported tacitly by China and more directly by Russia and Saudi Arabia, blocked any such language. With talks teetering on collapse, Brazil introduced voluntary side texts on fossil fuel transition and deforestation, issued by the presidency rather than adopted by all parties, leaving them politically symbolic but legally uncertain. The outcome left many negotiators frustrated. Colombia warned that a deal without fossil-fuel language “could not be supported,” while UN Secretary-General António Guterres cautioned that “the gap between where we are and what science demands remains dangerously wide.”
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