The Climate Paradox: Politics of the Possible vs. Science of the Necessary

Written by Paulo Magalhães

December 15, 2025

Published by Global Governance Forum 

A thirty-year paradox

The UN Climate Change Conferences (COPs) remain our only global forum for coordinated climate action. Yet we cannot expect different results from repeating the same approach that has dominated these negotiations for thirty years. COP30 in Belém, Brazil — quickly labelled the “COP of resistance” — avoided moving backward. But avoiding regression is not enough. The future demands bold steps forward, including rethinking the consensus rule that has too often turned ambition into stalemate. Without innovation, the credibility of the COP process will inevitably erode, and the world risks consigning these conferences to irrelevance.

At the heart of this challenge lies a tension between the art of the possible — politics as it is — and the science of the necessary, what physics and planetary boundaries demand. Bismarck’s 1867 dictum is still invoked to justify inaction: what is necessary is dismissed as unrealistic, and the possible becomes an ever-shrinking space defined by short-term interests, scarce resources, and competing narratives of responsibility.

In the UNFCCC context, these tensions are amplified. Reaching consensus among 198 countries is already a colossal task. Add to that the historical injustice of unequal emissions, vast disparities in wealth, and the under-recognized global value of intact ecosystems — especially in the Global South — and climate negotiations become far more than discussions on energy policy. They become negotiations over civilizational change, shaped by geography, history, and power.

The Glass half full and half empty

It is understandable that many negotiators see the glass as half full. Without the Paris Agreement, today’s emissions trajectory would indeed be worse. But reality leaves little room for complacency.

According to the UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2025, global emissions reached a record 57.7 GtCO₂e in 2024, an increase of 2.3% over the previous year, more than four times the average annual growth rate of the 2010s. On the current trajectory, the world is heading toward 2.5°C of warming, even assuming full compliance with Nationally Determined Contributions, which is far from guaranteed.

UNEP’s Global Cooling Watch 2025 further estimates that avoiding catastrophic outcomes would require removing roughly 10 billion tonnes of CO₂ annually, effectively creating the planet’s second-largest industry, after fossil fuels, financed by more than one trillion dollars per year. These reports quantify need but leave open essential questions: who will act, under what legal framework, and with what financing?

Recognizing that emissions must fall 42% by 2030 compared with 2019 is not a plan. It is merely the admission of necessity.

COP30: resistance without regression

For many, the mood at COP30 contrasted sharply with the sense of possibility that followed Brazilian President Lula da Silva’s electrifying 2022 speech at COP27, when Brazil’s candidacy to host COP30 was celebrated as a potential turning point. That moment suggested a decade after Paris could deliver a science-aligned breakthrough from the heart of the Amazon.

But political winds shifted. Climate denialism gained ground. The U.S. left the Paris Agreement and this year, for the first time, they were not present at a COP. A parallel “politicized science” emerged, distorting debate. In this context, Dubai’s COP28 (held in a petrostate) is now remembered for at least mentioning a “transition away from fossil fuels.” Belém’s COP30 could not even agree on that, and in terms of deforestation, the final text was nearly identical to that of COP29 in Baku. A feared collapse was avoided, but only by holding the line, not advancing it.

The scientific advisory group captured the gravity of this outcome: “We cannot evacuate planet Earth when disaster strikes. A science-aligned energy transition demands leadership, courage, and coherence.”

President Lula insisted that reversing deforestation, overcoming fossil-fuel dependence, and mobilizing resources remain essential and Brazil pledged to develop roadmaps for both deforestation and energy transition before the end of its COP presidency. Europe expressed strong support. But the question remains: can resistance alone sustain credibility without substantive breakthroughs?

Breaking the vicious cycle

If politics is the art of the possible, it becomes art only when creativity expands what is possible. As Nelson Mandela reminded us: “Everything is impossible until it’s done.” After thirty years of incrementalism, with Paris targets at risk of collapse this decade, continuing the same strategies is no longer responsible.

Secretary-General António Guterres has highlighted a core dilemma: Why fund adaptation if mitigation remains insufficient? Doing so risks financing an endless cycle, paying to survive ever-worsening damage caused by insufficient emissions cuts.

Breaking this cycle requires stable, institutionalized financing far beyond philanthropy or ad hoc pledges. Without permanent and predictable funding, no mitigation or adaptation plan can operate at scale.

One proposed solution, supported in spirit by numerous economists and climate advocates, is a tiny financial-transaction tax. Even a 0.05% levy could mobilize unprecedented resources while having minimal market impact. Ironically, the financial sector itself has produced some of the strongest evidence of climate risk: an ECB study finds that up to 70% of bank loans are exposed to climate and biodiversity risks. The Network for Greening the Financial System reports that climate-related “physical risk” could reduce global GDP by up to 30% by 2050 in severe scenarios.

This is no longer only a moral imperative. It is economic rationality.

Reducing emissions is not enough — we must remove them

One clear success of COP30 was the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), aimed at preserving tropical forests through long-term support. It reflects a simple truth: standing forests are worth more than cut forests, not only for carbon absorption but for the myriad ecosystem services that sustain the Earth system.

The fund represents a promising first step, but philanthropy, even in a financial scheme leveraging the sponsor’s capital, alone cannot scale to planetary needs. To remove the 10 billion tons of CO₂ per year that science deems necessary, the world must recognize the atmosphere (by legally distinguishing atmosphere from airspace) — and the climate (the functional aspect of the planet) as a common heritage of humankind. Legal frameworks like Portugal’s Lei do Clima offer a vision for such an approach, reframing atmospheric stability as a shared asset that generates rights and duties.

This would allow positive externalities to be internalized as economic value, shifting the paradigm that currently rewards destruction and undervalues preservation. In this context, the notion that a minimal tax on financial transactions is “unrealistic” becomes harder to defend than the alternative: persisting in a status quo that science tells us is impossible.

From resistance to renewal

As philosopher Viriato Soromenho-Marques observes, what we currently have is not a plan for civilizational transformation but a minimum survival plan. COPs remain our only global forum for climate action, but their credibility depends on delivering results at the scale physics demands. Otherwise, denialism will fill the vacuum.

Goethe wrote: “Nature is always serious, severe, and always right.” Physics will prevail; the only question is whether politics will act in time.

In this context, COP30’s affirmation of resistance is not insignificant. But resistance is meaningful only if it leads to courage: to rethink consensus rules, innovate financing, redefine global commons, and open new political pathways. Only then can the art of the possible finally converge with the science of the necessary.

This article was also published in Medium

Long version in Portuguese - Expresso