In a world marked by fragmentation and competition, the green transition represents both an urgent imperative and a strategic opportunity. Once considered peripheral, environmental diplomacy is now emerging as a key framework for understanding international relations, blending cooperation, competition, and new notions of energy sovereignty.
The rise and consolidation of a new diplomatic field
Environmental diplomacy began taking shape in the 1970s, starting with the 1972 Stockholm Conference and gaining institutional ground with the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. These gatherings laid the foundation for major environmental conventions on climate change, biodiversity, and desertification. Initially seen as marginal to high-level diplomacy, they have steadily grown in importance, especially with the increasing relevance of the COP (Conference of the Parties) summits.
The 2015 Paris Agreement marked a historic shift, nearly every nation committed to limiting global warming. Beyond its technical details, the agreement reflects a political will to embed environmental concerns in global governance. It also exposes deep fault lines between the Global North and South, historical polluters and emerging economies revealing just how strategic the green transition has become.
The green transition as a tool of power and influence
Nations are investing heavily in clean technologies, renewables, green hydrogen, batteries, and carbon capture. This innovation race is reshaping industrial hierarchies and creating new dependencies. China, for instance, is the global leader in solar panel and electric vehicle production, positioning itself at the heart of the low-carbon economy. The shift to clean energy also shifts focus from fossil fuels to critical materials like lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earths. These resources essential to green technologies are concentrated in a handful of countries (such as the DRC, Chile, and China), prompting strategic reconfigurations. Nations are racing to secure supply chains and build up strategic reserves. Some countries use environmental diplomacy to enhance their international influence. Small island nations like the Maldives and Tuvalu, highly vulnerable to climate change, have leveraged their plight to amplify their voices globally. Others, like Norway or Canada, project a green image to support sometimes controversial energy policies, demonstrating how ecological leadership can serve national interests.
Tensions and cooperation in global ecological governance
Fighting climate change requires international coordination, but strategies diverge. The EU promotes strict regulations (such as the carbon border adjustment mechanism), which some producer countries view as “green protectionism.” Depending on the administration, the U.S. swings between climate leadership and isolationism, while China blends climate diplomacy with commercial expansion.
Though least responsible for historical emissions, countries in the Global South suffer most from climate impacts. They demand recognition of their vulnerability, technology transfers, and adequate climate financing. The Green Climate Fund, meant to mobilize $100 billion annually, has become a symbol of this struggle and of the North’s repeated delays in fulfilling its pledges.
Environmental degradation and resource scarcity (e.g., water, farmland, biodiversity) can exacerbate tensions, particularly in already fragile regions such as the Sahel or Central Asia. Yet environmental cooperation is also a tool for peace: shared river basins (like the Nile or Mekong), regional forest agreements, and cross-border biodiversity initiatives show the potential for green diplomacy to foster stability.
Each year, more than 11 million tons of plastic waste end up in the oceans, a figure that could triple by 2040 without coordinated global action. This pollution is not only an ecological disaster threatening marine biodiversity, contaminating food chains, and endangering human health but also an economic and geopolitical issue. Ocean currents disregard national borders, making plastic pollution a fundamentally transnational problem. Rivers such as the Yangtze, the Ganges, the Mekong, or the Niger transport a significant portion of this waste into seas, implying the need for cooperation among riparian states to act effectively upstream. In response to the scale of the crisis, the international community is mobilizing. In March 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) launched a historic process to negotiate a legally binding global treaty on plastic pollution, covering its production, use, and end-of-life. The objective is to reach an agreement by 2025.
This initiative is a major step forward. It marks the official recognition of the need for a global framework, similar to the Paris Agreement for climate. However, negotiations are already revealing divergences: some major plastic-producing countries (such as the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia) prefer voluntary or technical solutions, while others (including the EU, Rwanda, and Peru) advocate for strict limits on production and consumption.
Plastic waste management raises questions of sovereignty. Several countries in the Global South, long recipients of plastic waste exported from the Global North such as Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia have begun to refuse or return shipments of imported waste, denouncing what they call “waste colonialism.” These tensions reflect a broader reaffirmation of ecological sovereignty and a push to redefine both historical and current responsibilities for pollution. At the same time, the spread of “dead zones” in coastal waters directly affects food security in many regions, particularly in West Africa and Southeast Asia, reinforcing the idea that plastic pollution is also a matter of human security.
In the face of inertia from major powers, new coalitions are emerging. The Clean Seas campaign, initiated by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), brings together more than 60 countries committed to reducing single-use plastics. Other initiatives, such as the Global Plastic Action Partnership, unite governments, businesses, and NGOs to accelerate recycling, eliminate single-use plastics, and promote the circular economy.
Environmental NGOs, such as Ocean Conservancy and Surfrider Foundation, play an unofficial but crucial diplomatic role. They document pollution, influence negotiations, and unite international citizen mobilizations, transforming beach cleanups into a political act. Other NGOs, such as Ocean Alliance Conservation Member (encouraged by the United Nations), are completely rethinking the global economic model by directly negotiating partnerships (OACM SOS: Sustainable Ocean Solutions Conservancy Program) with governments and large international corporations, at both national and local levels.
These partnerships enable the development of beach and coastal cleanup programs (White Flag CSMA Certification Process / SOCS Sustainable Ocean Cleaning System) ensuring the cleanliness of sites, their certification (CSMA Certified SAFE Marine Area), and their monitoring using new technologies (CEPS & GEPN Communication System). This model helps ensure sustainable growth of the economy, particularly that of tourism (Investment Sustainable Ocean Tourism Development), while preserving oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers.
Toward a transnational eco-diplomacy? New actors, new paradigms
Environmental diplomacy is no longer the exclusive domain of states. Cities, corporations, NGOs, foundations, and grassroots movements are increasingly implementing real ecological solutions. Coalitions such as the Under2 Coalition or the C40 Cities unite major metropolises committed to carbon neutrality. Meanwhile, corporations under pressure from consumers and markets are adopting bold climate pledges, in some cases outpacing governments.
Civil society plays a crucial role in shaping the global environmental agenda. From youth activists to major legal cases, climate diplomacy is increasingly driven “from below.” These movements are redefining popular sovereignty around the defense of the living world.
Given the complexity of today’s challenges, a systemic approach is essential. Environmental concerns can no longer be separated from trade, human rights, security, or social justice. A holistic environmental diplomacy treats ecology as a global lens through which to understand both national interests and collective well-being. This vision lays the groundwork for a new type of power, green, cooperative, and future-oriented.
Environmental diplomacy is reshaping the dynamics of international power. It does not replace traditional geopolitical logics but transforms them fundamentally. In a world gripped by climate, energy, and political crises, it offers a terrain for both confrontation and convergence. It compels states to rethink long-term interests, transcend national sovereignty, and invent a new language of power rooted in responsibility, cooperation, and sustainability. The future of sustainable development will be written not only in negotiation rooms but also in local struggles, technological innovation, and global mobilization. At this intersection, the geopolitics of the 21st century is taking shap
