Paris: Protect It, Improve It, Use It

By Jennifer Morgan

We are navigating a year of extraordinary consequence for global climate diplomacy, accelerated by deep geopolitical instability. The war in Iran has underlined our vulnerability to oil and gas volatility. And the physical reality of the climate crisis is hitting home, with a strong El Niño in 2026 likely to twist global weather patterns. There is a lot to be worried about.

We are also in a moment of blisteringly fast transition. Veteran energy analyst Michael Liebreich recently said he had no idea the energy transition would have accelerated so fast when he set up Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) in 2004. There is an important role for the UN and the COP to drive this forward. It is not necessary for all countries to move at the same pace and time; that is unrealistic. What we do need are coalitions of the willing cracking on with the transition on the ground, creating a rising tide that pulls everyone else up with it.

We saw the blueprint for this model just weeks ago at the Santa Marta Conference co-hosted by Colombia and the Netherlands. There, 57 countries, representing roughly one-third of the world’s economy, came together to confront not just whether to transition, but how to practically manage the shift away from fossil fuel dependence. Santa Marta is not a replacement for the Paris Agreement. It is an agile community of practice—a ‘coalition of the doing’—where governments learn from each other how to manage the politics of energy transition, redesign fiscal systems, handle social costs, and build resilient institutions in a fragmenting world.

Importantly, this momentum feeds directly into the initiative of the Brazilian COP30 President on Roadmaps to implement Paris Agreement decisions. An alliance is emerging—stretching from the North Sea to the Andes—committed to a managed, just, and orderly phase-out of oil, gas, and coal.

The other side of the coin of the phase-out agenda is green electrification. We all know that in order to transition away, one must both build sustainable energy access to those that do not have it and transition to renewable energy. COP31 hosts Turkey and Australia have signalled their commitment to a 35% electrification by 2035 target this year as part of the Action Agenda (not negotiated). They need themselves to implement concrete policies at home to make that call credible.

China’s electrification is already extraordinary, and the EU has committed to a 32% share of electricity in final consumption by 2030. But electrification must not remain the privilege of wealthier countries. The same logic that drove Pakistan’s solar revolution—that cheap, distributed, locally-generated electricity is economically superior to expensive, imported fossil fuel—applies everywhere.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, where hundreds of millions still lack reliable grid access, distributed solar and storage is the most economically rational path forward. In Southeast Asia, in Central America, and in the Sahel, the populations historically priced out of the energy transition are now the ones with the most to gain. Our task is to build the partnerships, standards, financing instruments, and supply chains that make green electrification one of the organizing principles of international cooperation over the next decade.

First, we need common international rules to speed up the rollout of clean electric tech. Second, we must require companies to show clear climate transition plans so investors feel safe flooding the market with capital. Third, we have to cut methane emissions immediately—a goal that even oil giants like Saudi Aramco have shown is entirely possible—to buy the planet a vital five-year breathing room while we restructure the wider grid. On each of these, coalitions of countries can and should just get on with it.

This real-economy focus is exactly what is needed now to build confidence for countries, states, cities, and companies to drive forward ambitiously. The next critical space for this is London Climate Action Week. London will serve as a high-visibility public platform where a true ‘coalition of doers’ across key governments and business leaders is expected to signal practical support for green electrification, commit investments, and address structural barriers directly.

The ultimate anchor for all of this work remains the implementation of the Paris Agreement. Over the last ten years, the Paris framework, combined with market forces, has quietly driven the astonishing market shifts we see today, turning clean energy into a trillion-dollar asset class. This is exactly why the Trump Administration is working so actively to destroy it.

Paris provides the essential architecture of ambition cycles, transparency, and accountability. Crucially, it offers an irreplaceable platform for global climate diplomacy at a time when forums like the G20 or G7 are gridlocked by geopolitical friction. It is the place where all countries—especially the most vulnerable—have a seat at the table.

When Paris was negotiated, we deliberately built in mechanisms that allowed groups of forward-leaning countries to step out ahead and cooperate. It is time to put those tools into practice. A fragmented patchwork of isolated deals is weak; an aligned ecosystem working toward the Paris goals is unstoppable.

Jennifer Morgan is former German Special Climate Envoy and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy and Climate Policy Lab, Tufts University