Leveling the playing field: why inclusive climate negotiations matter
We must act now. Soaring temperatures, escalating climate impacts, and growing global emissions demand an urgent response to the climate crisis.
Meanwhile, the increasingly challenging geopolitical context for climate ambition, heightened uncertainty and fragility in climate discourse and funding, and international climate negotiations failing to deliver and address the climate crisis, only further threaten the lives and livelihoods of frontline communities.
Shortcomings in global emissions reduction and the rapidly declining capacity of carbon sinks are further compounded by additional challenges, as the impact of adaptation financing is now being increasingly diverted to cover increasing loss and damage, which puts further pressure on climate-vulnerable countries to split the minimal funding they receive, reducing their adaptive capacity while increasing their debt-burden.
What is CASA?
Resource, geopolitical, and other constraints undermine the participation and representation of the interests of many vulnerable parties in the global South who proactively seek ambitious outcomes, aligned with the Paris 1.5 degree goal. Levelling the playing field,enabling collective action and ensuring that ambitious parties and climate-vulnerable nations not only have a seat at the table but also have their voices heard through a fairer, more inclusive negotiations process is critical, if we are to address the needs of those most vulnerable and accelerate climate action.
Funded by the United Kingdom’s (UK’s) Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), the Climate Ambition Support Alliance 2.0 (CASA2) programme works to address these constraints. CASA’s goal is to enhance climate ambition and facilitate aligned, proactive collective action through a fairer, more inclusive negotiations process that enables the meaningful participation of climate-vulnerable negotiators, where outcomes reflect the interests and positions of such groups.
Together with a consortium of key technical partners, and direct funding support to negotiating groups such as the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), CASA works to enhance climate ambition, enable collective action, and a fairer, more inclusive negotiations process through three key outcome areas: negotiations, capacity building, and implementation.
CASA facilitates and enables the meaningful participation of current and next generation groups and climate-vulnerable country negotiators through:
- Negotiations: Technical and legal advice and support for enhanced coordination and collaboration, so that negotiators and negotiating groups from ambitious parties from the global South better participate, engage in and influence international climate negotiations.
- Capacity Building: Targeted and sustained training opportunities and mentoring to build the knowledge and skills of developing country negotiators, aligned with the Paris Agreement goals, and country and negotiation group priorities. Institutional capacity strengthening through systems and structures that retain institutional knowledge.
- Implementation: Access to best practice resources and funding, and enhanced coordination and collaboration to facilitate collective action and implement international commitments at the national level.
What CASA offers
CASA is unique in its design as all its support is demand-led – driven by a collective commitment to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement – efforts to limit the increase to 1.5-2 degrees Celsius and the mobilisation of much needed climate finance, and a fair and inclusive negotiations process.
CASA has two main delivery streams: technical support through its consortium of technical partners and a flexible funding mechanism, better known as the Opportunity Fund. The Opportunity Fund provides support for demand-led activities, ensuring that the programme is responsive to the emerging and evolving needs of the negotiations landscape.
A snapshot of CASA’s key highlights from activities in 2024-2025:
- AOSIS: support to the AOSIS Chair and providing strategic and technical advice on the Global Stocktake (GST), Loss and Damage, Mitigation, Finance, Adaptation, Just Transition (JT) & Article 6, and contributing to thought leadership on transformational adaptation.
- The LDC group: support to the transition to Malawi’s chairmanship, strengthening the group’s internal coordination and providing strategic advice on priority themes such as the GST, Loss and Damage, Mitigation, Finance, Adaptation, and Just Transition.
- Advancing the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) and strengthening the Republic of the Marshall Island’s (RMI’s) leadership in international climate diplomacy.
- Providing scientific and technical advice to Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and AOSIS representatives participating in IPCC processes and ensuring alignment with UNFCCC priorities,
- Delivering technical support across negotiation tracks (GST, JT, Mitigation Work Program (MWP) Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and adaptation), to AILAC countries, and legislative support (specifically, Panama and Costa Rica) and the Dominican Republic, including direct engagement with ministries, support for national submissions to the UNFCCC, and mainstreaming climate policy across public and private sectors.
- Enhancing coordination and collaboration between groups: supported increased coordination across parties within the Cartagena Dialogue, and increased coordination between AOSIS and the LDC Group, which resulted in a joint press conference on Climate Finance at COP29 in Baku.
CASA continues to focus on building the long-term, institutional capacity of negotiating groups, increasing South-South cooperation, facilitating collective action, and supporting parties’ capacity to implement the commitments made during negotiations. It has also expanded its focus to include additional global South country parties to support an overall UNFCCC drive towards enhanced ambition and implementation, in line with the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow pact. Expanding its partnerships in this way, CASA has increased its exposure to a range of proactive interests that complement the negotiation efforts of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and LDCs.
Enabling collective action towards enhanced ambition is key. Through its support to negotiators and negotiating groups, and by facilitating their enhanced coordination, CASA works to develop and amplify ambitious narratives that can be useful and necessary leverage in the negotiations, advancing ambition particularly for those countries that face challenging circumstances.
With these different levers of support, climate-vulnerable negotiation groups have better access to best practice resources, potential funding streams, and can meaningfully engage with each other and key stakeholders to implement commitments made at the international negotiations in line with national priorities. They also have improved capacity to participate and engage in international climate negotiations and advance ambition through collective action to ensure that outcomes reflect the positions and interests of the climate-vulnerable nations they represent, thereby creating a fairer and inclusive negotiations process, and greater coalitions across the UNFCCC, that reflect the realities they face on the ground, targeted solutions, and adequate financing required to address them.