Extreme weather continues to hit developing countries, like the recent Cyclone Ditwah, which took 153 lives in Sri Lanka, yet COP gatherings achieve meagre results for the vulnerable. PHOTO: AFP
The Conference of the Parties (COP) 30 has ended, and the United Nations' reaction was immediate and unusually blunt: the results were meagre. In diplomatic language, such phrasing is rarely accidental. It signals not disappointment at the margins, but concern about the direction global climate governance is taking. COP30 was expected to mark a turning point. Instead, it confirmed how entrenched the political resistance remains and how limited the current frameworks are in producing meaningful outcomes.
The consequences are not abstract. Every delayed commitment, every softened line of text, and every diluted pledge translates into escalating risk for millions of people living in climate-vulnerable regions. Rising temperatures are no longer projections. They are now lived realities, with heatwaves, coastal erosion, flooding, and food insecurity becoming annual features of national governance challenges. When climate negotiations stall, those risks intensify.
Legally, COP30 reaffirmed the central weakness of the Paris Agreement architecture. It is cooperative but not binding, aspirational but not enforceable. The structure relies on voluntary commitments, peer pressure, and moral persuasion. These mechanisms work only if states are politically willing, and COP30 revealed a collective unwillingness to move beyond the minimum. The failure to secure concrete language on fossil fuel phase-out, financial obligations, or transparent implementation pathways means the world continues to operate under a framework that encourages ambition while legitimising delay.
For developing countries, the legal and practical consequences are immediate. Adaptation finance, which was meant to be a cornerstone of global climate equity, remains inconsistent and structurally insufficient. Commitments are made, celebrated, and quietly unmet. Funding that arrives is highly conditional, slow to disburse, and often directed through intermediaries rather than directly to the governments that need it. This undermines national planning and forces countries to navigate an unpredictable and fragmented financial landscape.
For Bangladesh, the inadequacy of COP30 is not a distant diplomatic concern but an immediate existential issue. As one of the most climate-vulnerable states in the world, Bangladesh faces the consequences of global inaction with disproportionate severity. Rising sea levels threaten to displace millions, salinity intrusion erodes agricultural productivity, intensified cyclones strain national infrastructure, and recurring floods impose heavy economic losses that exceed the state's adaptive capacity. Without predictable financing, enforceable mitigation commitments from major emitters or a functional loss and damage regime, Bangladesh is forced into a position where resilience must be built domestically while the international system fails to uphold its responsibilities. This is not merely inequitable; it undermines the core principles of climate justice that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was designed to protect. COP30 did not produce a clear liability structure, nor did it specify long-term financial sources. Without enforceability, the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) remains a symbolic victory rather than a substantive one. Countries facing inundation, displacement and economic loss are left without the legal certainty that international law should provide.
This ongoing failure has deeper implications. International climate law is increasingly at risk of becoming a patchwork of political gestures without operative force. The absence of binding obligations creates a structural inequality between nations that can afford adaptation and those that cannot. It erodes trust and undermines the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, which was intended to recognise historical emissions and capacity differences. If COP outcomes continue to shift responsibility downward while accountability remains diffused, global climate governance will lose legitimacy.
There are geopolitical consequences as well. As negotiations stagnate, more states are turning to litigation to fill the vacuum. Climate cases brought before national courts, regional tribunals and international bodies have surged in the past five years. Plaintiffs are no longer arguing broad moral responsibility. They are arguing breach of duty, negligence and violation of rights. Courts are beginning to define obligations in ways climate negotiations fail to do, and COP30's weaknesses will likely accelerate this trend.
If current patterns continue, we may also see a rise in unilateral and regional policy blocs. States that cannot rely on global agreements may begin forming smaller alliances with enforceable trade conditions tied to emissions standards and adaptation commitments. This shift would fragment climate governance further, leaving vulnerable nations outside decision-making circles where they need representation.
The humanitarian consequences are equally severe. With global mitigation stalled, climate-vulnerable states are forced to adapt to changes that exceed their institutional capacities. This accelerates migration pressures, infrastructure collapse, disease outbreaks and economic instability. These impacts spread beyond borders and reshape regional politics, labour markets and security landscapes. COP30's failure, therefore, imposes cascading costs on states least equipped to bear them.
The legal community must now confront an uncomfortable reality. The current system, built on voluntary pledges and moral commitments, is not delivering outcomes proportionate to the scale of the crisis. It was designed to foster cooperation, but cooperation has limits when it conflicts with economic self-interest. Without binding obligations, transparent review mechanisms and credible enforcement tools, COP agreements risk becoming statements of intent rather than instruments of governance.
The consequences of COP30 will not be felt in diplomatic halls. They will be felt in coastlines that recede, in dried farmlands, in cities that overheat and in communities that relocate because international law failed to protect them. Climate-vulnerable nations now stand at an inflexion point. They cannot rely on global goodwill. They must push for structural reform in negotiations, expand climate litigation strategies, strengthen regional alliances and invest in domestic resilience. The world does not have the luxury of waiting for political consensus.
COP30 did not deliver the outcomes that science demands or justice requires. The consequences of that failure are already unfolding. Unless the global community moves from symbolic progress to legally enforceable commitments, the climate crisis will continue to evolve faster than the institutions created to address it. The window for course correction is narrowing, and every weak COP outcome shortens it further.
Barrister Noshin Nawal is a columnist for The Daily Star. She can be reached at [email protected].
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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