State of Global Environmental Governance 2025 report
Lynn Wagner
Amid growing geopolitical tensions and unprecedented challenges to multilateralism, 2025 saw both setbacks and wins in global environmental negotiations. While shared action on climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and pollution is not moving at the speed and scale required, some advances are cause for hope.
The latest edition of IISD Earth Negotiation Bulletin’s State of Global Environmental Governance report reviews outcomes from climate change negotiations in Belém for the 30th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 30); the stymied plastic pollution treaty negotiations; the establishment of a new dedicated science body to inform policy-making on chemicals, waste, and pollution; and other key efforts to address the shared environmental crises of our times.
We invite your feedback—and the feedback of your students and peers—as our team reflects on the progress and regress of 2025's environmental negotiating rooms, consider what takeaways should guide our efforts in 2026, and preview the negotiations to watch in the coming year.
Read the report: https://www.iisd.org/publications/report/state-global-environmental-governance-2025
Best regards,
Lynn