More seriously, much of what needs governing in the 21st century surpasses the geographical boundaries of the nation-state. Capital exerts itself globally, and the 21st century economy is truly a world economy characterised by international production networks, global markets and global trade agreements. These changes also gave rise to new fields of academic study, including Development Studies, organised around ontological object of “development”. Likewise, socio-environment and socio-ecological crises have proved difficult to govern through nation-states. For example, anthropogenic climate change is driven by rising greenhouse gases – a planetary phenomenon. Moreover, the causes and effects of climate change are spatially disconnected. Developed countries in the North Atlantic capitalist core are disproportionately responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, whilst polar regions warm fastest, small island developing states (SIDS) risk disappearing as sea levels rise, and developing countries in tropical climates are battered by floods, cyclones and droughts. Nevertheless, it falls to nation-states to adapt to, and mitigate the causes of, climate change.
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Arguably, nowhere are these tensions more apparent than the annual United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) meetings. COP30, held in November 2025 in Belem, Brazil, showcased these challenges. At the Amazon gateway, delegations agreed to a new “global mutirão” decision, including tripling adaptation finance by 2035 and a new “Belem mission” to cut emissions. Yet, while COP30 was presented by its Brazilian hosts as the “COP of truth” and the “implementation COP”, the outcomes were disappointing. The negotiated text lacked substance and sidestepped fossil fuels and deforestation, shunting them to voluntary roadmaps – a familiar pattern reminiscent of past COPs.
At COP30, much of the blame for stalled implementation was directed at fossil fuel-producing countries. For some commentators, Russia and Saudi Arabia were to blame for leading others astray, while activists highlighted delegations parroting fossil fuel lobby lines to defend the right to continue burning coal, oil and gas. The latter critique is necessary; the former is dangerous, as it strips developing countries of agency, ignores the structure of the fossil fuel industry and, most significantly, obscures the differences between countries who did not sign up for the fossil fuel roadmap. India is not the same as Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia, is a product of 20th century oil politics. Established with British support as part of its imperial control over the Middle East following the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Saudi Arabia formed as a policy through the discovery and extraction of oil. Oil consolidated the power of the House of Saud, determined its relationships with imperial powers (most notably the British and the United States), its internal class structure and conjured enormous wealth.
India, on the other hand, is the world’s second largest coal consumer. It uses vast amounts of coal to power its growing industries and the lifestyles of its growing middle classes. However, its continued existence is not dependent on fossil fuels. Rather, as its delegates at COP30 were at pains to stress, fossil fuels offer India a way to fuel development, ensure livelihoods and tackle poverty.
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Calls for the right to development were a key, yet overlooked, theme at COP30. For many of the Likeminded Developing Countries, a bloc of developing countries who opposed the fossil fuel roadmap, the right to development was tied to fossil fuel production or consumption. But for others, it was intimately connected to fossil fuel phase out.
What stood out about the debate over the future of fossil fuels was that a country’s position seemed to depend more on how much it relies on oil, gas, or coal economically, rather than on how much it is affected by climate change. The 80+ countries supporting the fossil fuel roadmap together account for only 7% of the world’s fossil fuel production. Moreover, many, including Norway, Mexico and Brazil, have state-owned hydrocarbon companies investing in new hydrocarbon projects abroad. It appears territorial hydrocarbon endowment, not climate priorities, largely drives policy positions.
Paradoxically, this offers hope: the right to development could act as an organising principal within COP, providing an alternative route out of the climate crisis. History shows the potential of developing countries to radicalise United Nations (UN) institutions.
In the 1940s, Latin American economists established the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL), a regional economic organisation that challenged the influence of the IMF and promoted new ideas about development. Newly independent post-colonial states used these ideas, along with movements like Pan-Arabism and Pan-Africaism, to push for a fairer global economic system, known as the New International Economic Order (NIEC), which was ratified by the United Nations in 1974. Ironically, the NIEC was facilitated by the efforts of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to reshape the oil industry and to gain control over member state’s natural resources.
Though the NIEC’s potential was curtailed by neoliberal pushback, it illustrates the radical potential of parts of the UN. Unlike the Bretton Woods Institutions (the World Bank and the IMF), which have historically acted as agents of US power, the UN has offered space for former colonised nations to exert influence on the international stage.
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At COP30, the absence of the US, and China’s leadership of the G77 without stepping into US-dominated roles, provided unusual room for developing countries to manoeuvre. The COP meetings may be a lot of “blah blah blah”, but they are also spaces that contain this radical potential. Coalitions centred around development could recapture the spirit of the NIEC, confronting the climate crisis by addressing its structural roots: capitalism and the international system of nation-states.
History reminds us that, however slim, the possibility of transformative change exists – a reminder that, to paraphrase the global justice movement of my youth, another world is possible.
(1) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0047117816644662?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.2
(2) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1521/siso.2020.84.1.95
(3) https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/1031-lineages-of-the-absolutist-state?srsltid=AfmBOop3i7bIara5CghWSzENb85Z8lkzKvqrX6hPMSIzcJIAYJnro0fg