5 ways countries stymie climate negotiations without actually saying ‘no’

Detailed summary

As COP31 gets underway, researchers warn that countries can obstruct climate negotiations without openly rejecting action – using funding disputes, weakened commitments and procedural tactics to delay progress.

Nearly every country in the world has acknowledged that climate change is a serious problem. It’s hard to ignore, as billions of people suffer through increasingly destructive storms and extreme heat.

In response, most governments have promised repeatedly to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are driving global temperatures higher. Yet those emissions are still hitting record levels, and global negotiations over how to slow climate change routinely end with weak promises.

There’s a reason: All it takes to water down a deal during these negotiations – the 2026 UN climate conference started 9 November – are a few voices obstructing progress, often without ever saying “no,” and all the while maintaining the appearance of being a climate leader.

As a professor of environmental studies and international relations at the University of Southern California, I’ve attended and observed international climate negotiations for over a decade. My research lab investigates climate justice concerns and the forces that obstruct progress at the global UN climate talks.

As world leaders and their negotiators meet for the latest climate talks, COP31, in Antalya, Turkey, Nov. 9-20, you can also pick out who is obstructing progress. Here are five tactics among many that powerful people at these conferences use to delay, weaken or redirect meaningful action while still appearing committed to addressing climate change:

“We don’t have the money” is a familiar refrain at UN climate negotiations.

At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2024, wealthy countries pointed to tight budgets, pandemic debt and rising inflation as reasons they could not meet the US$1.3 trillion in assistance that developing countries were demanding. They instead offered US$300 billion annually by 2035 as a finance target.

Poorer countries that did little to cause climate change want longtime fossil fuel users to pay for the damage emissions have caused.

For example, the International Institute for Sustainable Development found that…

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