COALITIONS OF THE WILLING

The world's approach to tackling shared challenges - from climate change to public health and sustainable development - has plainly failed

- Jayati Ghosh

It is easy to be pessimistic about multilateralism nowadays. Recent international gatherings - including the 2023 Sustainable Development Goals Summit, the 2024 Summit of the Future, and multiple COPs - have yielded only unfulfilled promises. At a time when US President Donald Trump is abandoning America's international commitments, rejecting multilateral initiatives, and sowing chaos and confusion in global trade, can the Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) at the end of this month go any better?

To be sure, the US may well act as a spoiler in Seville, or simply disregard any agreements that are made. But that does not mean that the summit will be a bust. After all, America's withdrawal from the 2015 Paris climate agreement during Trump's first presidency-mere months after the deal entered into force - did not lead to its demise. While action has been limited, almost everyone recognizes that without the agreement, climate change would likely occur even faster.

Moreover, in April, the US withdrew from negotiations on decarbonizing shipping at the UN's International Maritime Organization, warning that it would consider "reciprocal measures" if any new fees were charged to US ships for their fuel use. Yet the IMO succeeded in getting 108 countries - accounting for 97% of the world's merchant-shipping fleet by tonnage - to approve a new mandatory fuel standard for vessels and a global emissions-pricing mechanism, with the revenues supporting, among other things, infrastructure development in developing economies.