by Climate diplomacy refers to the system of multilateral negotiations through which states coordinate responses to climate change. The principal institutional forum for this process is the UNFCCC, where governments negotiate mitigation commitments, climate finance, adaptation support, transparency frameworks, and mechanisms addressing loss and damage.
Although the UNFCCC operates formally on the principle of sovereign equality, the practical dynamics of negotiation are shaped by significant asymmetries in economic power, technical capacity, and historical responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions. These disparities influence bargaining power and agenda-setting capacity, producing a structure in which major emitters and advanced economies often exert greater influence over technical and procedural outcomes, while climate-vulnerable states bear disproportionate exposure to impacts.
This asymmetry is especially evident in the relationship between industrialized economies and highly vulnerable developing states. Many small island developing states and least developed countries contribute minimally to global emissions yet face acute and sometimes existential climate risks. Conversely, major emitters typically maintain larger diplomatic missions, deeper technical expertise, and greater institutional capacity to engage across the full breadth of negotiation streams.
Climate diplomacy therefore extends beyond emissions accounting into questions of distributive justice, responsibility, and global inequality. While all states participate formally on equal terms, their effective influence is strongly mediated by coalition-building, institutional capacity, and the ability to translate vulnerability into normative and political leverage.
Vulnerability and differential exposure to climate impacts
The significance of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and other climate-vulnerable nations lies in the intensity of their exposure to climate impacts and the constraints on their adaptive capacity.
SIDS face heightened exposure to sea-level rise, coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion, and extreme weather events. In some cases, these risks extend to fundamental questions of territorial integrity, long-term habitability, and state continuity, raising unprecedented legal and governance challenges.
LDCs experience climate vulnerability through structural economic dependence on climate-sensitive sectors such as rain-fed agriculture and fisheries. Climate variability—including droughts, flooding, and shifting precipitation patterns—directly affects food security, livelihoods, and macroeconomic stability. Limited fiscal space and borrowing capacity further constrain recovery from climate shocks, often increasing reliance on external assistance.
Across parts of sub-Saharan Africa, climate risks such as desertification, water scarcity, heat stress, and extreme rainfall events interact with demographic pressures and infrastructural constraints. In regions such as the Sahel, states like Niger and Chad, recurrent drought conditions and land degradation contribute to compounding vulnerabilities affecting agricultural productivity and governance capacity.
Across these contexts, climate change operates as a “threat multiplier,” interacting with pre-existing structural vulnerabilities related to poverty, weak infrastructure, and constrained access to capital. As a result, climate negotiations for vulnerable states are frequently framed not only in environmental terms but also as issues of development, survival, and international equity.
Unequal capacity in climate negotiation
Despite formal legal equality among states, climate diplomacy exhibits persistent disparities in negotiating capacity.
A key constraint is delegation size and specialization. Smaller states often operate with limited diplomatic personnel who must cover multiple negotiation tracks simultaneously, restricting their ability to engage in parallel technical streams such as mitigation accounting, adaptation finance, and carbon market design. In contrast, major economies typically deploy larger, more specialized delegations that include experts in legal drafting, climate finance, and emissions modeling, enabling sustained engagement across simultaneous negotiation processes.
For example, states such as Nauru and the Cook Islands typically send around a dozen delegates or fewer, while countries like Eritrea are represented by only a handful of participants in some COP years.
By contrast, major emitters such as the United States regularly deploy well over 100 delegates, allowing them to cover multiple parallel negotiation streams simultaneously with specialized legal, technical, and finance teams.
It is important to note that small delegation size is not unique to vulnerable states—some smaller or wealthy countries (for example Ireland or other mid-sized European states) also send relatively limited teams. However, the key distinction is that vulnerable countries face far greater exposure to climate impacts and far fewer domestic resources, meaning limited delegation size translates directly into reduced negotiating capacity under existential stakes.
Financial constraints further limit participation. Regular attendance at COP meetings and intersessional negotiations requires resources that many vulnerable states lack, leading to dependence on external support and uneven continuity in negotiations. For example, small island developing states such as Tuvalu and Kiribati often rely on funding from UNFCCC support programmes to be able to maintain consistent presence at COP negotiations. Without this external assistance, these states would struggle to send even minimal delegations to annual conferences and preparatory sessions, which in turn weakens their ability to follow fast-moving negotiation texts and maintain continuity across multiple COP cycles.
Technical asymmetries also reinforce inequality. Climate negotiations increasingly rely on complex legal drafting, emissions accounting frameworks, and economic modeling. States with limited domestic technical infrastructure may depend on external expertise, which can constrain independent formulation of negotiating positions.
Finally, there is often a gap between negotiated commitments and implementation. Delivery of climate finance, technology transfer, and adaptation support frequently depends on donor priorities, institutional capacity, and domestic absorption constraints, leading to uneven realization of agreed outcomes.
Coalition-building and collective diplomacy
To offset structural disparities in capacity, vulnerable states engage in coalition-based diplomacy, pooling resources, expertise, and negotiating positions.
The Alliance of Small Island States represents low-lying island and coastal states facing acute climate risks. Despite limited economic weight, AOSIS has played an influential role in agenda-setting, particularly in advocating for the 1.5°C temperature goal and advancing recognition of loss and damage as a formal pillar of climate governance.
The Least Developed Countries Group represents a broad coalition of economically vulnerable states. It operates through internal division of labor across negotiation tracks, allowing members to specialize in specific technical areas and coordinate unified positions across complex negotiations.
The African Group of Negotiators provides regional coordination for African states, facilitating common positions on adaptation, finance, and implementation priorities.
The Climate Vulnerable Forum brings together states highly exposed to climate impacts, with a particular emphasis on climate finance and vulnerability-informed policy advocacy.
Through these coalitions, vulnerable states increase their collective bargaining capacity, improve technical coordination, and enhance their ability to shape negotiation agendas. Their influence is most pronounced in norm-setting and agenda formation, particularly in areas such as temperature targets, adaptation framing, and loss and damage governance.
Influence under constraint
Small island developing states, least developed countries, African states, and broader climate-vulnerable coalitions occupy a structurally ambivalent position in global climate governance. They are among the least responsible for cumulative emissions yet among the most exposed to climate impacts.
Despite limited material power, these states have become important actors in shaping the normative and procedural direction of international climate negotiations. Through coalition-building and strategic use of vulnerability narratives, they have contributed to the elevation of the 1.5°C goal, the institutionalization of adaptation within the UNFCCC framework, and the formal recognition of loss and damage as a policy domain.
However, their influence remains uneven across different dimensions of governance. While vulnerable states are often effective in shaping discourse and negotiation agendas, they remain dependent on larger economies for finance, implementation capacity, and enforcement mechanisms. Climate diplomacy thus reflects a dual structure: increasing inclusion of vulnerable voices alongside persistent asymmetries in material power and delivery capacity.
In summary, climate diplomacy is not solely a technical domain of emissions accounting and economic negotiation, but also a contested political arena in which legitimacy, responsibility, and survival are continuously negotiated. Vulnerable states do not control the system, but they play a significant role in defining its normative objectives and moral architecture.
Sofia Kiryttopoulou is studying for a Bachelor’s Degree in Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies. Specialization: Politics and Law, at University of Macedonia | Thessaloniki, Greece.