UNFCCC

This award recognises the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change for providing the essential multilateral architecture that keeps the world moving toward a net-zero future. With 198 Parties demonstrating near-universal membership, its secretariat based in Bonn, Germany, serves as the permanent operational backbone of global climate cooperation. Throughout 2025, this infrastructure supported the critical work of the Ad Hoc Work Programme on the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance, the ongoing First Global Stocktake follow-up, and the preparation of the third generation of Nationally Determined Contributions. Above all, it convened and managed COP30 in Belém, Brazil, where 10–21 November 2025 the Global Mutirão decision was adopted – a landmark consensus outcome that set a new goal to mobilise at least $1.3 trillion annually for climate action by 2035, tripled adaptation finance targets, and launched the Belém Mission to 1.5°C.

The enduring value of the UNFCCC lies not in headline breakthroughs but in the steady, unglamorous work of maintaining a forum where 198 sovereign states can negotiate, report, and be held accountable. It provides the transparency framework for NDCs, the registry for adaptation communications, and the institutional memory that turns scattered national efforts into a coherent global response. By ensuring that every Party – no matter how large or small – has a seat at the table and a voice in the process, the UNFCCC has built the indispensable foundation for every subsequent climate agreement, from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement. For sustaining the only universal platform capable of driving collective decarbonisation, the UNFCCC receives this recognition.