The global shift toward a low-carbon future cannot await full geopolitical consensus. Instead, progress will depend on convergence amid divergence—nations advancing shared goals despite differing priorities. Success will be measured not by harmony, but by resilience: the ability to maintain momentum even amid political fragmentation.
Today’s world faces dual pressures—urgent climate threats and intensifying geopolitical competition. Major power rivalries are reshaping trade and technology flows. Conflicts have altered energy dependencies, while increased military spending threatens to undermine emissions reductions in some regions. In certain democracies, climate policies face growing resistance.
Yet environmental realities continue to escalate. Extreme weather events are altering risk patterns faster than diplomatic efforts can respond. At the precise moment when cooperation is most needed, international systems appear least capable of delivering it. Could the very forces dividing the world also contribute to solutions?
This question was central to discussions at the Nature and Climate Output Lab, hosted during the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meetings of the Global Future Councils in Dubai. Government officials, business leaders, academics, and civil society representatives explored whether rivalry, regionalism, and national self-interest could accelerate rather than hinder the green transition.
The consensus was clear: transformation must proceed through the complexities of global power dynamics, not in spite of them. Two notable absences shaped the dialogue—China and the United States. China leads in scaling clean technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and batteries, significantly reducing their costs. It also dominates the supply of rare earth elements critical to these technologies. However, it remains the world’s largest carbon emitter.
In contrast, the current U.S. administration has distanced itself from climate commitments, withdrawing from the Paris Agreement and dismissing renewable energy as economically harmful. Despite these stances, competition between the two powers has driven rapid advancements in clean-energy manufacturing, spurred investment in critical minerals, and strengthened domestic green industries.
The risk lies in allowing this competition to devolve into green mercantilism—a zero-sum race defined by subsidies, tariffs, and technology hoarding. The challenge is to channel rivalry into productive innovation while maintaining global cooperation.
A new, multipolar landscape is emerging, one not dominated by a single power but shaped by regional alliances and collaborative initiatives. Across Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, coalitions are forming around climate resilience and sustainable development. BRICS nations are asserting greater control over their energy pathways. Regional blocs like ASEAN, ECOWAS, and the African Union are developing joint climate programs. Gulf countries are investing in large-scale renewable and ecosystem restoration projects.
This evolving structure exhibits three key characteristics: First, greater agency among developing nations, which are now exporting renewable energy expertise and early-stage climate finance. Second, increased South–South cooperation, where peer-to-peer collaboration proves effective due to shared risks and development contexts. Third, regional experimentation, where localized initiatives—such as a Southeast Asian climate data network or an East African soil regeneration corridor—serve as models for broader adoption.
Sustainability can thrive even in a fragmented world, provided new cooperation hubs are actively supported. Leaders must ensure these networks are equitable, interoperable, and aligned with planetary boundaries.
Economic incentives are also evolving. Industrial policy is being revived with a green focus. Europe’s Green Deal Industrial Plan, China’s upcoming Five-Year Plan, and past U.S. initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act reflect a growing recognition that markets alone cannot drive systemic change. The emphasis is shifting toward who can most efficiently deploy capital and scale sustainable technologies.
Finance is also transforming. Sovereign wealth funds, development banks, and private investors increasingly treat climate resilience and biodiversity as viable assets. Blended finance models, combining public and private capital, are reducing barriers to investment. Public institutions taking initial risks help attract private funding that might otherwise remain idle.
Measurement frameworks are improving. With carbon markets maturing and transparency increasing, companies are increasingly evaluated on long-term value creation. Global standards like those from the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) are aligning incentives across borders. The next step is extending these metrics to cover nature, water, and waste.
Digital infrastructure is becoming essential to the green transition. Artificial intelligence, satellite monitoring, and blockchain-based tracking enable real-time verification of emissions, biodiversity credits, and resource use. When properly governed, these tools make sustainability both visible and accountable.
The economics of sustainability are proven. What remains is aligning political will, institutional capacity, and public trust. Trust itself depends on consistency, inclusion, and transparent governance. International agreements must move beyond pledges to reliable implementation. Cities, Indigenous communities, youth groups, and small enterprises must be included not as observers but as key actors in implementation.
Technology governance is now central to legitimacy. AI can accelerate clean-tech innovation but also deepen inequality if unregulated. Norms around transparency, safety, and accountability are crucial. Effective communication is equally important—narratives that combine ambition with empathy can bridge divides that treaties alone cannot.
While fragmentation poses risks—such as duplicated efforts, inefficient systems, and weakened cooperation—it can also foster innovation. Competition drives technological advancement. Redundant systems can enhance resilience. Regional policy experiments offer transferable lessons. In this sense, a multipolar world may support diverse pathways toward a common sustainable future.
The task is not to idealize fragmentation, but to manage it wisely—ensuring competition leads to meaningful progress and that inclusion and planetary stability remain guiding principles. The next phase of global cooperation will rely less on unity than on alignment through necessity. The true measure of success will be durability: a world capable of sustaining progress even when politics fracture.
— news from The World Economic Forum
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From rivalry to resilience: Geopolitics in the green transition
The green transition cannot wait for perfect geopolitical alignment. n nThe next phase of global cooperation will depend less on consensus than on convergence. n nThe measure of success will not be harmony, but durability – a world able to sustain progress even when politics splinters. n nThe world finds itself caught between fragmentation and urgency. n nGreat power rivalries are reshaping global trade and technology flows. Wars have redrawn energy maps, and carbon-intensive arms racing threatens to reverse hard-won carbon reductions in some regions. A populist backlash against climate policy has gained momentum in the world’s most powerful democracy. n nYet the physical clock of the planet keeps ticking. Floods, fires, and droughts are rewriting the geography of risk faster than diplomacy can adapt. n nThe paradox is clear: just as cooperation is needed most, the geopolitical system seems least capable of delivering it. But might geopolitics itself – long assumed to be the enemy of sustainability – become part of the solution? Can nations harness rivalry, regionalism, and even self-interest to accelerate, rather than obstruct, an inclusive transition? n nThis question animated much of the discussion at the Nature and Climate Output Lab, a session convened under the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meetings of the Global Future Councils and Cybersecurity in Dubai. There, leaders from government, business, academia, and civil society explored how the forces now dividing the world might also contain the seeds of convergence. n nTheir conclusion, implicit or stated, was that the green transition cannot wait for perfect harmony. It must advance through the messy realities of power – not around them. n nPower, rivalry and opportunity n nTwo absences hovered over the conversations in Dubai like unacknowledged guests: China and the United States. The silence was striking. No nation has done more than China to scale the technologies of decarbonisation – solar, wind, electric vehicles and batteries – or to drive down their cost. Yet no nation emits more carbon, or holds greater sway over the materials that power the transition. n nOn 9-10 October 2025, Beijing expanded export controls on rare earths and related technologies, adding an extraterritorial licensing rule for foreign products with ≥ 0.1% Chinese-origin rare earth content and tightening controls on magnets, oxides, alloys, production equipment and process know-how. The metals that enable the transition can also be instruments of power. n nAcross the Pacific, the United States has moved sharply in the opposite direction. The current US government has once again withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and has derided climate change as a “hoax” and renewable energy as a path to ruin. n nAnd yet, rivalry can be a crucible for progress. Competition between the superpowers has already driven an extraordinary acceleration in clean-energy manufacturing. It has catalysed investment in critical minerals, re-shored green industry, and sharpened the focus on resilience and innovation. The challenge now is to prevent “green competition” from devolving into green mercantilism – a zero-sum contest of subsidies, tariffs and technology hoarding. n nGeopolitics will not disappear from the climate story. The question is whether it can evolve from a source of paralysis into a source of propulsion: a framework through which self-interest, security, and sustainability finally align. n nMultipolar momentum n nJust as the old order frays, a new architecture of influence is emerging – one not anchored in any single hegemon but shaped through networks, alliances, and experiments in regional integration. The fragmentation that troubles multilateral institutions also opens space for novel centres of gravity in sustainability. n nAcross Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, coalitions are forming around climate, nature, and development goals. The BRICS collective is increasingly asserting agency over its own transition pathways. ASEAN, ECOWAS, and the African Union are exploring collaborative climate-resilience programs. The Gulf states are engineering large-scale renewable and nature-based projects that straddle energy, water, and ecosystem regeneration. In every region, there’s a push to reimagine sovereignty not as isolation, but as ecological stewardship. n nThis emergent multipolar momentum has three features worth noting: n nAgency at scale: Countries once cast as passive recipients are now offering models and resources. Nations exporting renewable energy, forest-management know-how, and early-stage climate finance are shifting the narrative from dependency to capability. n nSouth–South reciprocity: Beyond North–South aid, there’s growing emphasis on peer-to-peer cooperation. Shared climate-risk profiles, similar development trajectories, and mutual trust make collaboration among Global South states not just useful but often more effective. n nRegionalized experimentation: In a brittle global system, regional platforms become testbeds for scalable innovation. A Southeast Asian climate data grid, an East African soil-restoration corridor, or a Latin American carbon-credit alliance can pilot governance and finance models that later expand outward. n nThe implication is clear: inclusive sustainability can survive or even flourish amid geopolitical fragmentation, as long as new nodes of cooperation are nurtured. The challenge for leaders is to actively catalyze these nodes and ensure that they are equitable, interoperable and committed to planetary boundaries. n n10 Emerging Technology Solutions for Planetary Health n nArticles n nAI geopolitics and data centres in the age of technological rivalry n nArticles n nWhy every company now needs a Chief Geopolitical Officer n nEconomics and incentives n nNo transformation endures without the right incentives. The global economy remains structurally misaligned with the planet’s boundaries – a mismatch of time horizons, metrics, and motivations. Yet shifts are underway that could make sustainability the default logic rather than a costly exception. n nFirst, industrial policy is back, and it is greener than before. From Europe’s Green Deal Industrial Plan and China’s 14th and forthcoming 15th Five-Year Plan, about which Chinese Party leaders will deliberate in the coming weeks, governments are rediscovering that markets alone cannot deliver systemic change. Even the United States, which has long disparaged industrial policy, embraced it during the Biden years – the Inflation Reduction Act contained many green commitments and would have gone far to fund the American energy transition. What distinguishes the current wave is not protectionism per se, but competition for sustainability leadership — who can deploy capital fastest and scale green technologies most efficiently. n nSecond, finance is evolving from risk management to opportunity design. Sovereign wealth funds, development banks, and private investors are beginning to treat climate resilience and biodiversity as investable assets. The rise of blended finance – combining concessional and commercial capital – is blurring the line between philanthropy and profit. In this model, risk becomes a form of leverage: the willingness of public institutions to take first loss crowds in private capital that would otherwise remain on the sidelines. n nThird, measurement is catching up to reality. As carbon markets mature and data transparency improves, firms are being priced – and praised – for long-term value creation rather than short-term earnings. Disclosure standards, such as the ISSB (International Sustainability Standards Board), which sets global standards for sustainability-related financial disclosures, are aligning incentives across borders. The challenge now is to extend this logic to nature, water, and waste – to create a full-spectrum accounting of planetary costs. n nFinally, digital infrastructure is emerging as the connective tissue of green transformation. Artificial intelligence, satellite monitoring, and blockchain-based traceability systems can verify emissions, track biodiversity credits, and optimize resource use in real time. Properly governed, these technologies make sustainability not just visible, but verifiable. n nThe question is no longer whether the economics of sustainability work — they do — but whether political will, institutional capacity, and public trust can keep pace. The incentives exist. What remains is alignment. n nLoading… n nTrust and governance n nEvery transition ultimately runs on trust. Technology, capital, and policy can accelerate change, but only legitimacy sustains it. The last decade has shown that when people lose confidence in institutions – whether national or global – progress stalls, polarization deepens, and misinformation fills the void. n nRebuilding trust starts with consistency: clear rules applied predictably, commitments honored, and benefits shared. International frameworks must move beyond pledges to predictable execution: disbursements that arrive when promised, standards that are interoperable, and dispute-resolution mechanisms that inspire confidence. n nIt also demands inclusion. The governance of sustainability cannot remain confined to ministries, corporations, and multilateral bodies. Cities, indigenous communities, youth organizations, and small enterprises are no longer stakeholders on the margins; they are the implementation layer. Their participation makes all the difference when it comes to capacity. n nMeanwhile, technology governance has become the new frontier of legitimacy. The same AI systems that accelerate clean-tech discovery can also distort information and entrench inequality. Establishing norms for transparency, safety, and accountability is therefore not ancillary to climate or development agendas: it is vital and central. n nFinally, communication matters. The narratives that shape public imagination determine which futures feel possible. A governance model that couples ambition with empathy – one that explains not just what must change, but why and for whom – can bridge divides that treaties alone cannot. n nNuclear energy: How finance, policy and innovation can triple capacity by 2050 n nArticles n nHow strategic foresight can future-proof the Gulf’s energy transition n nArticles n nThe renewables dividend: Why Somalia must bet big on clean power n nAll of these can be challenging in an increasingly fractured geopolitics where national and regional capitals are focused either on great power competition (Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Brussels) or, as for the great majority of the rest, on balancing between those powers, leveraging their competition, hedging or just staying out of the way. n nYet paradoxically, fracture can also fertilize progress. Competition among powers can spur innovation and deployment, as nations race to master green technologies and secure supply chains. Redundant systems – once derided as inefficiencies – can become buffers of resilience, ensuring that no single chokepoint can derail global decarbonization. Regional rivalries may yield diverse policy experiments, each offering lessons that others can adapt. In this sense, fragmentation can distribute risk and generate a kind of ecological pluralism: a world of many pathways converging, however unevenly, toward a shared sustainable horizon. n nTo be sure, fracture cuts both ways. The same rivalries that drive innovation can just as easily fuel redundancy with no silver lining of added resilience – just undiluted inefficiency. It can fuel zero-sum thinking and hardened ethnonationalist narratives that define security in exclusionary terms. Strategic competition has already diverted resources into carbon-intensive rearmament. Fragmentation risks splintering technology standards, undermining trust, and creating parallel systems that duplicate cost but not progress. The line between resilience and waste is thin, and the world is wobbling on it. The task, then, is not to romanticize multipolarity, but to discipline it: to channel rivalry into races worth winning and to keep inclusion and planetary stability as the metrics that matter. n nThe next phase of global cooperation will depend less on consensus than on convergence. It will depend on nations, regions, and communities aligning by necessity, even when unity proves elusive. Multipolarity, if governed with discipline and imagination, can still deliver what unipolarity and paralysis could not: distributed resilience, diverse experimentation, and a broader base of legitimacy. The measure of success will not be harmony, but durability – a world able to sustain progress even when politics splinters. That, ultimately, is what resilience must mean.