SCEPTICS argue that the annual climate conferences are elaborate talk shops that produce renewed pledges without commensurate action. This dismissal is fundamentally flawed. It misses the unprecedented transformation unfolding across the global economy.
The Conference of the Parties process under the UNFCCC is the most consequential engine for a paradigm shift in global development. It has created an irreversible ecosystem of change that is accelerating transformation across every major sector. The process has succeeded not through mandate but by embedding innovations in science, economics, ecology, and legal accountability into the global policy bloodstream. COP has effectively rewired the global development trajectory.
UNFCCC’s uniqueness: The climate convention that works through annual COPs is uniquely anchored in robust, consensus-driven science from the IPCC, whose First Assessment Report in 1990 confirmed that human activities were substantially increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and causing global warming, directly catalysing the UNFCCC’s adoption in 1992. No other environmental convention has such a powerful, independent scientific body constantly updating evidence. The IPCC reports are formally accepted by governments and directly shape ambition for subsequent negotiations, creating a built-in ratchet mechanism through the UNFCCC’s five-yearly Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that compels countries to progressively increase climate ambition backed by latest science.
The UNFCCC has superseded virtually all other global development frameworks. SDG-13 on climate action has become the organising lens through which all other development goals are interpreted. Climate finance rivals traditional development assistance. The NDCs under the Paris Agreement often command more resources than national SDG implementation plans. The COP process has catalysed new fields of intellectual inquiry: climate finance architecture, just transition, climate litigation, net-zero pathways, adaptation economics, climate-triggered displacement, migration, and conflicts.
Three decades of COP negotiations have transformed climate action.
Climate change poses an existential planetary threat measurable by single, universally understood metrics: GHG emissions and global average temperature rise, with the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold serving as a clear danger line. In contrast, the sister Rio conventions on biodiversity and desertification grapple with multifaceted, localised variables that lack such universal, disruptive metrics. Similarly, climate adaptation and resilience, despite being critical for vulnerable countries like Pakistan, lack standardised global metrics, making it harder to mobilise international finance and political attention compared to mitigation efforts.
Transformations & barriers: The world has not succeeded in limiting global warming to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C threshold, and this failure carries consequences. Yet to dismiss the past decade as wasted would be to ignore substantial accomplishments. Ten years ago, scientific models projected warming of up to 3.8°C by century’s end. Today, that projection has improved to between 2.5 and 2.9°C — still dangerous but representing nearly one degree of warming averted through collective action.
Three decades of COP negotiations have transformed climate action from diplomatic aspiration into structural economic reality, driven mostly by economic imperatives. Solar power costs have plummeted, making renewable energy the cheapest option for new power generation worldwide. E-vehicles have moved from luxury novelty to market reality as one in five cars sold globally is now electric. Clean energy investment has reached unprecedented levels. Financial markets have reoriented, with climate risk now recognised as fiduciary risk. The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero represents over $130 trillion in assets.
These transformations occurred during the hottest decade on record — a reminder that progress and peril coexist. The world is still failing to meet the 1.5°C benchmark. More troubling is the inability to finance adaptation. While mitigation finance flows relatively freely, especially private sector investments, adaptation finance remains insufficient.
This gap reflects a fundamental asymmetry in the global climate architecture where those least responsible for the crisis bear its heaviest burdens. At COP29, countries acknowledged developing nations require $1.3tr annually by 2035 to manage climate impacts, including $300 billion yearly for adaptation in public finance from developed countries. The commitment falls short of actual need, and where this money will come from remains uncertain. Global warming already inflicts some $1.4tr in annual economic damage worldwide. These costs fall disproportionately on those least responsible yet most vulnerable. The adaptation finance promised represents less than what the world already loses each year, underscoring the inadequacy of international response.
The question is no longer whether transition is possible but whether it can accelerate sufficiently to avert catastrophe. Infrastructure, technology, and economic logic for decarbonisation now exist. What is uncertain is whether national political systems can translate the momentum to adopt their ecosystems of change.
Pakistan’s dilemmas: Pakistan’s experience reflects both promise and challenge. We have witnessed an explosive rooftop solar revolution while official energy planning paradoxically pursues coal projects that global markets have deemed stranded assets. The farm sector responds, but only to international pressure. Major cities remain absent from global transformative networks like C40. While PSDP has not leapt forward, major infrastructure projects face climate risk screening from international lenders. The SECP has begun to push for sustainability reporting standards, but these market-driven shifts have not translated into a coherent national reform agenda.
Pakistan’s adaptation needs are estimated at 10 to 18 times larger than current public finance flows, creating a dangerous situation where crucial domestic reforms are delayed pending promised climate finance that may not arrive. The structural asymmetry compounds this: international funding for mitigation flows as a global public good, while adaptation remains unattended and underfunded.
The UNFCCC has spurred global transformation with undeniable economic benefits. Countries that have embraced this shift report more jobs and stronger growth rates. China’s experience is striking: it now earns more from green technologies than the US does from fossil fuels. Yet we must be clear about what COPs can and cannot do. They set direction and global ambition only within the bounds of consensus. National ambition, reform agendas, and delivery mechanisms remain the responsibility of each country. The COP is not an alternative to domestic action.
The writer is a climate change and sustainable development expert.
Published in Dawn, November 20th, 2025
