· 14 min read
From Maastricht to Belém: The power of place
In 1992, the leaders of Europe gathered in the unassuming Dutch town of Maastricht to sign a treaty that would reshape the continent. The Treaty was an act of political imagination and Maastricht wasn’t chosen for its economic clout or geopolitical centrality. It was chosen because of what it represented: a place of beauty and inspiration showing what an ‘Ever Closer Union’ could represent, a peaceful venue where historic tensions could be softened by collective vision.
The Maastricht Treaty laid the groundwork for the euro, European citizenship, and deeper integration. Whatever your views on the rights and wrongs of that decision, there is no question that it required compromise. It required that national governments to set aside elements of sovereignty for the promise of shared strength. It showed that trust and imagination, when institutionalised, can change the course of history.
Now, Brazil is offering the world a similar symbolic moment. COP30 will take place not in Brasília or São Paulo, but in Belém, at the edge of the Amazon. This choice is not incidental. It is a quiet but unavoidable reminder that climate diplomacy belongs not in the polished halls of the Global North but among the people and places on the frontlines of ecological crisis. Like Maastricht, Belém challenges us to reimagine the architecture of cooperation.
Mutirão: A climate method, not just a metaphor
At a closed-door meeting last week convened by Chatham House and attended by some of the most influential voices in the energy transition, I was struck by how familiar the conversation felt. Despite the urgency and the stakes, the core dynamics had barely changed in the decade I’ve spent in these discussions.
And yet, this COP feels different. The venue is already a signal. But more importantly, the concept at its heart may hold the key to progress. The mutirão.
A mutirão is not just a cultural concept. It is a method. It is what happens when communities come together to solve a shared problem without waiting for permission or instruction. It speaks to solidarity, to local agency, and to pragmatic cooperation. In a process often weighed down by negotiation and delay, the mutirão offers a different way forward. It begins with doing.
Brazil’s COP30 presidency has rightly elevated this idea. What if climate action followed the logic of a mutirão? What if multilateralism became less about negotiation and more about mobilisation? This reframing could rescue climate cooperation from its current gridlock.
Some glimpses of mutirão-style thinking already exist. The Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP), launched at COP28, encourages national governments to formally integrate local and regional actors into their climate strategies. Meanwhile, networks like C40 and ICLEI are enabling cities to advance bold climate action—often faster than national counterparts. These efforts reflect the spirit of a mutirão in motion: distributed, locally grounded action toward a common global goal.
The elephant in the room: Capitalism and the knowledge trade-off
But mutirão logic runs headfirst into capitalist incentives. In theory, the fastest way to decarbonise is for those with solutions to share them. In practice, knowledge is guarded. Intellectual property (IP) drives returns. Companies that develop breakthrough technologies, from grid optimisation to carbon capture, are under no obligation to share them with countries that can’t afford the licensing fees.
This is not theoretical. In Indonesia, efforts to build a national carbon market have been slowed by limited access to MRV (monitoring, reporting, verification) technology. African utilities deploying solar mini-grids often rely on third-party software locked behind proprietary paywalls. Even in methane abatement, arguably the fastest way to cut warming, advanced detection tools are unequally distributed.
We don’t need to abolish IP. But we do need new frameworks: pre-competitive consortia, patent pools for climate-critical tech, and voluntary licensing tiers based on ability to pay. Just as the WHO supported the creation of a voluntary patent-sharing mechanism for COVID-19 health technologies through C-TAP, climate diplomacy must now do the same for critical energy transition tools ensuring that the technologies we need to save the planet are accessible to all, not locked behind proprietary walls.
Justice is not optional: Energy poverty and transition risk
A mutirão that doesn’t reach the world’s poorest is not a mutirão at all. Today, more than 700 million people lack access to electricity. In sub-Saharan Africa, households and businesses depend on some 25 million small, polluting petrol generators. You can’t ban these devices without offering better alternatives.
This is where Article 6 of the Paris Agreement becomes critical. It allows countries and private actors to invest in emission reductions abroad and count them toward their own targets, so-called Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs). If done with integrity, Article 6 could become a pipeline for clean energy access in the Global South.
The first Article 6.2 transactions under the Paris Agreement are already underway. Switzerland has partnered with Peru to support the distribution of low-emission cookstoves, while Ghana has established a national approval framework to authorize ITMO-generating projects like solar irrigation. These are promising starts, but the global uptake remains limited, and far greater ambition is needed to unlock the potential of Article 6 at scale. COP30 must deliver robust rules for transparency, benefit-sharing, and human rights safeguards to ensure these mechanisms serve people, not just emitters.
A new social contract for climate capitalism
The original Maastricht deal wasn’t just about treaties, it was about realigning interests. Businesses, governments, and citizens had to buy into a shared European future. The same must now happen for climate.
This doesn’t mean overthrowing capitalism. It means making capitalism work for the transition. In South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP), G7 nations have pledged $8.5 billion to help shift from coal to renewables while protecting workers and communities. While there is a lot to like here it cant be a blueprint for future deals, it can and must be done better.
Three years on, only 7% of funds pledged have been disbursed as grants, and the bulk of financing remains in loans or guarantees. Worsening the transparency gap, over half the grant funding was released before the Investment Plan was made public, with few funds flowing to local beneficiaries. Despite being a model for deals in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Senegal, the South Africa JETP underscores that a true just transition requires timely, transparent, community-centred funding, not just big headlines.
Elsewhere, green industrial policy is emerging as a new norm. The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and the EU Green Deal Industrial Plan drew billions toward clean tech but risked excluding the Global South. A new social contract means creating pathways for shared benefit: co-manufacturing, technology transfer, and preferential financing for least-developed countries.
We must stop treating justice and growth as opposites. A stable climate is the foundation for future prosperity. A mutirão economy recognises that prosperity must be built together, or it will collapse apart.
The story we tell: From targets to tangibility
Even the best policy will fail without a compelling story. Climate advocates often speak in megatonnes and degrees Celsius. But people vote and act based on emotion, not spreadsheets.
In the UK, support for climate action dipped when framed as sacrifice. But when framed as a path to cleaner air, better health, and energy independence, support rebounded. COP30 must become a platform for re-humanising the climate story.
Instead of showcasing only national commitments, COP30 should spotlight real projects, tangible, human stories that show what climate action looks like on the ground. A forest protected in Pará by Indigenous guardians who are now being paid as carbon stewards. A solar microgrid powering a rural school in Senegal, where kids no longer study by candlelight. A just transition programme in Mpumalanga, helping former coal miners retrain as solar technicians, with childcare and transport covered so they can attend.
But these kinds of stories don’t just live in the Global South. They’re emerging everywhere and they’re what will build trust in the transition. In the UK, it’s the retired naval base in Plymouth now housing the country’s largest offshore wind fabrication yard, creating skilled jobs in a region once hollowed out by deindustrialisation. In the US, it’s a community solar project in the Bronx, owned by tenants, cutting bills and building resilience in one of the country’s most energy-burdened postcodes. In Spain, it’s an abandoned coal town in León now hosting Europe’s first large-scale green hydrogen valley, with former fossil workers leading the retrofit.
These are not side events. They are the main stage. People need to see themselves in the story and see that climate action is not just about sacrifice or faraway summits, but about opportunity, dignity, and renewal. A global mutirão must speak not only to cabinet rooms and boardrooms, but to living rooms. And the language it speaks must be human.
A blueprint worth Building
Maastricht succeeded because it left behind more than words. It left behind institutions, norms, and a shared sense of direction.
Belém can do the same. But only if we think structurally, not symbolically. That means:
- A global transition tracker to monitor real-world delivery of pledges
- A forest finance compact rooted in transparency and equity
- Institutional frameworks to govern Article 6 with accountability
- A standing coalition of willing nations to fund just transitions in emerging economies
This is what it means to make mutirão real: to take a cultural principle and build political infrastructure around it.
If COP30 does this, if it turns the Amazon from backdrop into blueprint, it won’t just be another conference. It will be a turning point.
A mutirão worth remembering.
illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability & Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.
