The International Institute for Sustainable Development’s (IISD) Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) has published its annual overview of the state of global environmental governance. This year’s report highlights that amid growing geopolitical tension and unprecedented challenges to multilateralism, 2025 saw both setbacks and wins. Acknowledging that shared action on climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and pollution is not moving at the speed and scale required, it notes some advances that are cause for hope.
Titled, ‘State of Global Environmental Governance 2025,’ the seventh edition of the report shares insights gained from observing talks in the many areas of the environment and sustainable development, including climate change, biodiversity, desertification, and chemicals and waste.
Among 2025’s achievements, the report highlights:
- Sustainable development: ongoing implementation of the Pact for the Future; the Second World Summit for Social Development, where governments recommitted to building a more just, inclusive, equitable, and sustainable world and recognized new challenges to social development; and the outcomes of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4);
- Climate change: the adoption of Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) indicators, the decision to develop a just transition mechanism, and a new Gender Action Plan under the UNFCCC; and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on States’ climate obligations and consequences of their breach;
- Biodiversity: decisions on monitoring implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), resource mobilization, and the financial mechanism under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), as well as the launch of the CBD Subsidiary Body on Article 8(j) and Other Provisions Related to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (SB8j 1); and
- Chemicals and waste: the establishment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste and Pollution (ISP-CWP).
Among missed opportunities, it identifies: the absence of decisions on fossil fuel phase-out and on halting and reversing deforestation in the international climate process; the lack of agreement to enhance the multilateral system of access and benefit-sharing (MLS) under the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA); and countries’ inability to reach consensus on a plastic treaty.
The report notes 2025’s increased emphasis on efficiency in implementation and governance. While synergies between conventions and processes have long been discussed, these conversations “took on renewed salience because of shrinking budgets and the need ‘to do more with less.’”
“As countries prepare to tackle fossil fuels at a conference outside a formal UN process, the authors wonder if 2026 might bring more visionary approaches to reinvent multilateralism,” is another key message of the report.
Published on 19 February 2026, the report was edited by Elena Kosolapova, PhD, with contributions from, Jen Allan, PhD, Jessica Templeton, PhD, and Lynn Wagner, PhD. Rolph Payet, Executive Secretary, Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS) Conventions, wrote a foreword.
ENB provides a variety of multimedia informational resources for sustainable development policymakers, including daily coverage of international negotiations, analyses, and photos. It is recognized for its objectivity and expertise in international environment and sustainable development policy. [Publication: State of Global Environmental Governance 2025] [Publication Landing Page] [SDG Knowledge Hub Stories on State of Global Environmental Governance 2024, 2023]