The latest round of international climate negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is taking place at Doha, Qatar (26 November–7 December 2012). A major task for the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP18) is to secure climate change commitments and to move towards credible post-2020 agreements on nations' carbon emissions reductions, other mitigation measures, and international economic support for adaptation measures, particularly in relation to the developing world.

Previous climate negotiations have been dogged by seemingly endless disputes and bickering. On page 834, Heike Schroeder and colleagues argue that progress to international cooperation on climate policy has also been hampered by highly inequitable United Nations structures that effectively handicap poorer nations. They note that COP meetings have become increasingly dominated by wealthy nations able to afford to send large numbers of delegates with high levels of expertise, to the detriment — at least in terms of representation — of more cash-strapped developing nations.

They also argue that the very structure of meetings increases poor nations' vulnerability, because extremely lengthy and gruelling sessions end up exhausting smaller delegations disproportionately. Furthermore, they say, consensus-based decision-making (versus majority voting) has stifled progress and contributed to negotiation deadlocks, which ultimately cause most harm to the world's poor. They conclude that both the institutions and their structures require root-and-branch reform if justice in climate negotiations is to be achieved.

Not least due to their historical emissions, it can be argued that rich developed nations have particular responsibilities in climate negotiations and must be seen to lead by example. Jouni Paavola and colleagues (page 837) focus on the need for the European Union to foster and build on the 'coalition of ambition' that it so successfully developed along with the Alliance of Small Island States and some of the world's least developed counties a year ago in Durban, South Africa. They argue that the EU also needs to strengthen links with other key players such as Brazil and South Africa that supported its proposed roadmap to a post-2020 deal. However, they note that to remain credible, the EU will need not only to “accommodate the interests of its potential allies on issues such as mitigation ambition, adaptation finance and deforestation,” but also practice what it preaches, for example by committing to more ambitious targets for emissions reduction.