Mads Christensen is the Executive Director of Greenpeace International.
In a year that marks the UN’s 80th anniversary and 30 years since the first UN climate summit, the global multilateral system tasked with preventing disaster remains incapable of delivering the speed and scale of change we need — even as the available carbon budget shrinks and tipping points loom.
At the heart of this paralysis lies the broken consensus model of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Every decision must be agreed to by all 198 Parties. In practice, this means even one country can block the rest of the world from acting — and a number often do.
We’ve seen this play out repeatedly: oil-saturated nations derailing fossil fuel phase-out language, rich nations delaying climate finance, and authoritarian regimes using geopolitics as leverage to stall negotiations. But it’s not just fossil fuel exporters or autocracies causing the deadlock.
The result is a ‘race to the bottom’ that rewards inaction, dilutes ambition, and sidelines the world’s most vulnerable. It’s time to end this cycle. It’s time for majority voting at UN climate summits and to reform what are now outdated governance structures.
System is failing vulnerable nations
The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, was a diplomatic breakthrough — but it lacks enforcement mechanisms. Implementation has stalled. Emissions are still rising. Fossil fuel production is expanding, and we are hurtling toward 3.1°C of warming by the end of the century.
In short: the system is not delivering and the world cannot afford another lost decade of incrementalism.
This isn’t just a technical problem — it’s a moral one. The communities most affected by the climate crisis are also those least responsible for causing it. From small island states facing existential sea level rise to millions across Africa and South Asia suffering crop failure, water stress, and energy poverty, the injustice is staggering.
These nations have consistently called for stronger action. But under consensus rules, they are routinely overruled or ignored. Instead, decisions are held hostage by the interests of the few: fossil fuel-producing states, authoritarian governments, and wealthy nations with regressive leadership, like the US under President Trump.
Consensus has become a tool of obstruction. We need a model that actually gives climate justice a chance to prevail — one where the majority can act, and the vulnerable are empowered.
Momentum for reform is growing
The case for majority voting is not just practical — in the light of recent judicial developments, the legal and political implications are being magnified.
In July, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion stating that fossil fuel licensing, consumption, and subsidization could amount to violations of international law and basic human rights. This raises the legal stakes for governments that continue to expand fossil fuel production while obstructing climate negotiations.
Simultaneously, political momentum for UN reform is growing. In a speech this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a more “just and equitable global governance system” in a pointed critique of institutions dominated by outdated rules and powerful interests.
The UN Secretary-General’s own flagship initiative for global reform, the UN80 process, underscores just how overdue these governance changes are.
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Although key reform proposals have been delayed beyond this year’s UN General Assembly, the Secretary-General’s mandate implementation review paints a picture of systemic dysfunction: overburdened mandates, siloed agencies, and an avalanche of reporting with little impact or accountability.
If the broader UN system is struggling to deliver on its own instructions, climate governance must not remain stuck in the same bureaucratic inertia. Majority voting could be the first real test of whether the UN can shift from fragmentation to function.
Brazil’s leadership needed
We must ensure that this momentum is used to strengthen — not weaken — international climate governance and majority voting is a clear and immediate step that can deliver results. The UNFCCC’s draft rules of procedure — pending since COP1 in 1995 — already contain provisions for majority decision-making. Their adoption has been blocked for three decades by countries benefiting from the status quo.
Brazil, as host of COP30 in 2025, has already taken a leadership role by proposing innovations in climate cooperation. In a letter to Parties in May, it floated the idea of an “alignment” of actors and efforts— signals that the country is open to innovations in cooperation that go beyond the consensus trap.
That opening must be seized with the courage to act and this year’s UN General Assembly offers governments an opportunity to push for procedural reform and test majority-backed decisions.
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Brazil’s leadership, and support from a wide coalition of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Pacific, and progressive EU members, can tip the balance. Multilateralism that cannot function — that enables the few to obstruct the many — is no longer credible and must evolve.
While consensus can remain our preferred approach, where there are a few blockers to the majority, we must instead push ahead with science, justice and majority voting to ensure progress.
This is not unprecedented. Other international bodies, from the World Health Assembly to the International Labour Organization, use majority voting when needed. It’s time the UNFCCC caught up. The climate crisis is the defining challenge of our time.
The world’s people are demanding action, and a majority of nations are ready to respond. But a system where one or two countries — whether fossil fuel powers or political saboteurs like Trump’s America — can block the entire planet from acting is not just undemocratic, it’s deadly.
Let consensus be the starting point. But when the majority are ready, and the stakes are existential, let the majority act. Let the majority decide.
