The world’s largest climate summit has just wrapped in Belém, Brazil. 194 countries attended — all but the US, Afghanistan and Myanmar. Yet, Brazil’s commitment to multilateralism, led by President Lula, helped the world remain unfazed by the absence of its largest superpower. In fact, in the face of what UN climate chief Simon Stiell called “denial, division and geopolitics”, nearly every other nation signaled that international climate cooperation remains intact.

COP has felt increasingly unstable in recent years. Decisions in Dubai during COP28 shifted the dial on the energy transition, resulting in the first-ever acknowledgment that fossil fuels must be phased down, but leaving deep divisions between oil-producing nations and those calling for a full phase-out. Many felt the compromis

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