An article from Inside Climate News examines why United Nations climate negotiations (COP meetings) repeatedly fail to produce the rapid, transformative action needed to address the climate crisis. The piece argues that the rules, culture, and structure of the UNFCCC are designed to preserve consensus and process—not progress—resulting in negotiations that favor powerful countries and maintain the status quo.
A central voice in the article is Danielle Falzon, RCEI Affiliate, a sociologist at Rutgers University whose multi-year research draws on extensive interviews with COP negotiators from both developed and developing nations. The article presents her work as a key lens for understanding why the climate talks move slowly and why meaningful change so often stalls.
Falzon explains that COP conferences operate more like “a corporate conference” than an emergency response effort, emphasizing polished presentations, bureaucratic English, and endless procedures rather than the urgent realities of the climate crisis. As Falzon puts it, negotiators rarely speak plainly about the catastrophe unfolding outside: “I’d like to go to the negotiations and see people taking seriously the urgency and the undeniability of the massive changes we’re seeing… I’d like to see them break through the sterilized, shallow, diplomatic language and talk about climate change for what it actually is.” This quote underscores her argument that the culture of the talks suppresses emotional honesty and urgency, which in turn weakens the political will to act.
A major contribution of Falzon’s research featured in the article is her analysis of how COP procedures reinforce global inequalities. Wealthy nations arrive with large, well-staffed delegations capable of attending overlapping sessions and shaping key decisions, while poorer countries struggle simply to keep up. As Falzon explains, “Everyone is exhausted but people from smaller delegations are just trying to keep up,” a dynamic that allows richer nations to set the pace and define priorities. Her findings show that this imbalance is “built into the institution,” which prioritizes consensus, new documents, and new work programs—often at the expense of actual emissions reductions.
Ultimately, the article argues—drawing extensively on Falzon’s expertise—that COP’s technocratic language, proceduralism, and institutional design mirror the global inequities the talks are meant to solve. After 30 years of meetings, she notes, the process continues to generate new texts and promises rather than real climate action: “Much of what’s called success at COP now is the creation of new texts, new work programs, rather than real climate action.”
Read the full article here.
