Climate crisis: COP30 highlights importance of international cooperation

Chloé Farand

Leaders gathered at COP30 in Belém, Brazil. "07.11.2025 – Fotografia oficial da Cúpula do Clima (COP30)” by Lula Oficial, CC BY-SA 4.0

Unlike many COPs before it, November’s climate summit grappled with some of the real-world challenges of reducing emissions – from global trade to the risks and opportunities of the energy transition.

The conference in Belém, Brazil, marked ten years since countries adopted the Paris Agreement to prevent dangerous levels of warming. But it was also the first to take place since the world temporarily hit 1.5C of warming above pre-industrial levels for an entire calendar year. At COP30, the Brazilian presidency focused on turning lofty commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions into real-world action.

Rajat Jariwal, an officer of the IBA Environment, Health and Safety Law Committee, says that, insofar as the just energy transition and climate finance are concerned, there are ‘a lot of positives that can be taken from COP30’.

A major step forward was the establishment of a Just Transition Mechanism to ensure that the shift to clean energy systems is equitable within and among countries. The mechanism is intended to be a one-stop shop for enhancing international cooperation and providing technical assistance, capacity-building and knowledge sharing so that the energy transition respects human rights, is fair to workers and drives sustainable development.

Countries also agreed to triple adaptation finance for the world’s most vulnerable nations by 2035, despite deep divisions on how to plug the climate finance gap.

Outside the formal negotiations, Brazil, which hosted the first COP in the Amazon, launched the Tropical Forest Forever Facility. It’s a multilateral fund that aims to raise public and private investment and use the returns to reward developing countries for keeping their old-growth forests – those that have developed over long periods of time – intact. The fund raised an initial $6.6bn from governments.

Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples played a larger role at the conference than ever before and COP30 brought commitments to recognising their territories as a climate solution.

Notably, COP30 wasn’t attended by the US government after President Donald Trump pulled the country out of the Paris Agreement for a second time in early 2025. In January, he also withdrew the US from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international treaty underpinning the Paris accord. The Trump administration says the Convention no longer serves ‘American interests’.

American manufacturers are worried the renewed push for fossil fuels will make US businesses less competitive as the rest of the world embraces renewable energy, says Michael Showalter, an officer of the IBA Environment, Health and Safety Law Committee. However, the White House didn’t appear to have an interest in the COP30 discussions and, more generally, believes it’s in America’s ‘national interest’ to ‘unleash [its] affordable and reliable energy and natural resources.’

At the conference, major emerging economies such as China and India took aim at the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) – a tax on imports of some carbon-intensive goods such as steel, aluminium and cement that came into effect in January – which they have staunchly criticised, calling it ‘protectionist’ and ‘unfair’. The EU says the CBAM is a ‘tool to put a fair price on carbon emitted during the production of carbon-intensive goods that are entering the EU, and to encourage cleaner industrial production in non-EU countries.’ It asserts that the CBAM is a climate measure and not a trade or protectionist tool, and that it’s designed to be compatible with World Trade Organization rules.

In the final COP30 agreement, countries reaffirmed that climate measures ‘including unilateral ones’ shouldn’t constitute trade restrictions that are ‘arbitrary’ or ‘discriminat[ory]’ and agreed to hold further dialogues on climate and trade. Yves Melin, Co-Chair of the IBA International Trade and Customs Law Committee, says these dialogues may prove to be ‘helpful discussions’ in the long term but in the immediate future, countries will need to adjust to the realities of the EU’s carbon border levy.

Despite support from dozens of countries, calls to design roadmaps to phase out fossil fuels and end deforestation failed to reach the necessary consensus. Opposition from large oil-producing countries kept any language on fossil fuels out of the final text. In this sense, the conference ‘fell short of what it actually set out to achieve,’ says Jariwal, who’s a Delhi-based partner within Trilegal’s environment and climate change practice.

Instead, Brazil said it’ll develop voluntary roadmaps outside the formal UN negotiations, which will be presented at COP31 in 2026. Colombia and the Netherlands announced they would host the first conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in April.

Efforts to address the gap to limit warming to 1.5C also fell short. The carbon-cutting plans submitted by countries for COP30 put the world on track for 2.6C of warming. There was broad recognition that overshooting 1.5C of global warming, at least temporarily, is now inevitable. To bridge the gaps, countries agreed to launch two voluntary initiatives to accelerate the implementation of global climate plans and step up ambition.

But in spite of the headwinds, COP30 showed that multilateral action on the climate is still possible at a time when other environmental negotiations on curbing plastic pollution and cutting emissions from international shipping have stalled.

‘Despite challenging geopolitical circumstances, I think the outcomes of the conference highlighted that international cooperation remains critical to advancing effective global climate mitigation and adaptation,’ says Emily Morison, Project Lawyer within the IBA’s Legal Policy & Research Unit (LPRU). ‘The COP30 President’s commitment to developing roadmaps to transition away from fossil fuels and halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 and the announcement of the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels […] will shape the future activities of countries and private actors, and the legal community will be central to helping clients navigate these shifts.’

‘It’s a victory in itself that [COP30] didn’t fall flat’, says Els Reynaers, Co-Chair of the IBA Environment, Health and Safety Law Committee, adding that voluntary initiatives outside the formal negotiations will help to ‘keep up the momentum’. COP30 was also a space for those working to address the climate crisis, from activists to policymakers and entrepreneurs, to brainstorm and collaborate. In today’s world, ‘that in itself is a success,’ says Reynaers, who’s also Head of the Environmental Law Team at MV Kini in Mumbai.

Iran’s economic crisis fuels mass protests as US tensions grow

Emad Mekay, IBA Middle East Correspondent, Cairo

An economic meltdown has plunged Iran into severe unrest, with mass protests, mounting fatalities and US military threats raising fears of a wider regional conflict. Unrest in December followed a sharp drop in the value of the rial that wiped out purchasing power for much of Iran’s 90 million population. Protesters have demanded economic relief and broader political changes.

Iranian authorities initially showed restraint, but the security forces later responded with lethal force. The opaque environment, including internet shutdowns, makes independent verification difficult, and conflicting casualty figures have emerged, which has proven controversial.

On 21 January, the Martyrs Foundation, a state body that provides support to families of the dead, announced a 'preliminary' death toll of 3,117 people, classifying 2,427 as ‘martyrs’, which encompasses security personnel and civilians Tehran says were killed by protesters. They labelled the remaining 690 as ‘terrorists.’

Four days earlier, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said ‘several thousand people’ had been killed, attributing the violence to ‘rioters’ and what he described as interference by the United States and Israel. The Norway-based group Iran Human Rights has put the death toll at about 3,400. Exiled opposition, however, puts casualty figures at several thousands, much higher than local figures.

Concerns from rights groups persist that state violence may have contributed to a much higher toll especially after the country’s conservative judiciary said ‘rioters’ would face charges of moharebeh, a controversial term that means enmity against God, a capital offence under Iranian law. The charge has been used to justify mass executions before but is incompatible with Iran’s obligations under international human rights law.

Iran saw sustained unrest in 2025, including protests by truck drivers and by incarcerated prisoners, and, in 2022, the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement. The recent protests stand out, though, underscoring the breadth of public discontent on economic grounds. Despite an internet blackout that began on 8 January, scenes of mass protests and crackdown still reached the outside world.

The scale of the violence in Iran triggered an emergency session of the UN Security Council on 13 January. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk demanded an immediate end to the ‘brutal force’ used by security forces. ‘The killing of peaceful demonstrators must stop and the labelling of protesters as ‘terrorists’ to justify violence against them is unacceptable,’ he said.

UN human rights investigator Mai Sato and other experts warned that the systematic targeting of protesters risks triggering a broader human rights crisis. They pointed to impunity granted to government officials responsible for the violence. At a UN Human Rights Council session on the protests, Iran’s ambassador, Ali Bahreini, rejected the proceedings as politically motivated, accusing sponsors of ignoring the impact of Western sanctions on Iranians and of supporting Israel’s strikes in June 2025 that killed civilians.

Mark Ellis, Executive Director of the IBA, says Iran’s crackdown has broken international laws and treaties protecting life, freedom, fair trials, free speech, children’s rights and access to healthcare. ‘These operations have involved egregious tactics, including the use of live ammunition and other lethal weapons against demonstrators. There have been mass arrests, detention without prompt charge or judicial review, denial of access to lawyers and family members and interrogations under coercive conditions,’ he says.

Toby Cadman is a Member of the IBA War Crimes Committee Advisory Board. ‘Evidence points to repeated violations by the authorities,’ he says, ‘with protesters often pummelled by live ammunition, mass arrests, and intimidation’. Mounting evidence of systematic abuses could constitute serious treaty violations and potential international crimes. Iran remains a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to peaceful assembly.

The unrest has created risks to regional stability and global energy markets. The United States signalled it would send help to the protests and President Donald Trump said Washington was considering ‘all options,’ including military strikes and ‘leadership removal’. On 15 January, the US sanctioned five Iranian officials and threatened Tehran’s trade partners with 25 percent tariffs. Meanwhile, the UK and EU have prepared a fresh tranche of sanctions targeting Iran’s energy and software sectors. The US military build-up in the Gulf continues and, on 26 January, the Pentagon confirmed that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, had arrived in the region, a major strategic signal.

‘Unilateral intervention by the US, Israel, or any other state without Security Council authorisation would, in principle, breach the prohibition on the use of force under Article 2(4) of the UN Charter,’ says Cadman, ‘except in cases of self-defence against an armed attack as provided by Article 51. The threshold for self-defence is high and requires clear evidence of an actual or imminent armed attack. Pre-emptive or preventative strikes remain highly controversial and are generally not accepted under current international law.’

In direct response to US rhetoric describing Iran’s Supreme Leader as a ‘sick man’ and calling for new leadership, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that any attack on the Supreme Leader would be a ‘declaration of war’ and would trigger a ‘full-scale war.’ Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said Iran will be ‘firing back with everything’ if attacked.

Iranian media outlets have defended Iranian security policies by saying the protesters killed security personnel and set fire to government offices and mosques. The state-affiliated Press TV called the protests ‘foreign-backed’ and blamed the US and Israel for using Starlink and cyber-ops to coordinate the protests on the ground. ‘What remains today is not strategy, but escalation driven by frustration and imperial decline. Open endorsement of unrest, public threats of force and abandonment of diplomatic restraint signal a shift from calculated coercion to impulsive escalation.’

Despite blaming foreigners, the protests forced a rare acknowledgement from senior Iranian officials of domestic economic woes, previously attributed solely to Western sanctions. President Pezeshkian, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said in a joint statement they were ‘committed to work around the clock, follow the directives of Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and utilise the capacity of the elite and the educated, to solve livelihood and economic problems and ensure public security, through unity.’

Iranian media claim the protests have ‘fizzled out,’ a report that could not be independently verified. The threat of US strikes too may have been temporarily delayed. ‘We are entering a truly perilous period,’ says Cadman, ‘not only for the people of Iran but for the broader international community and the norms that underpin global order,’ adding that the international community must stand with Iranians to assert their fundamental rights and peacefully protest against the government. ‘Our solidarity must be unwavering, yet also principled. We must not exacerbate the situation or provoke further instability through hasty or unlawful measures.’

Federica D'Alessandra, Co-chair of the IBA's Rule of Law Forum, says US military force, or threats to use it, violate international law and risk dangerous escalation. ‘The world already appears to be on a precipice, and the current geopolitical moment is unquestionably fraught with peril,’ she says. ‘In the last month, we have seen concrete US military action against Venezuela, as well as threats of annexations over Greenland – both of which were clear international law violations.’

And she adds: ‘We should be asking ourselves, “what sort of precedent does it set when the world’s most powerful country can flout international norms against the use of force - whether actualized or threatened - so frequently and overtly against other states and what impact on global stability any further erosions of this crucial norm would have?”.’

Cadman says: ‘Now, more than ever, we must champion justice, legality, and respect for sovereignty, offering meaningful support to the Iranian people without compromising the rule of law or international legitimacy.’ Though protests may have waned amid crackdowns, Iran’s inflation, joblessness and crumbling currency remain unresolved. As sanctions tighten, military build-up in the Gulf widens and threats loom larger. The crisis is both an internal uprising and test of existing international legal frameworks.

Emad Mekay can be contacted at emad.mekay@int-bar.org

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