Returning to Brazil: What Negotiations Taught Me About Multilateralism

By Luiza Dorfman Knijnik, University of Sydney, COP30 Fellow

Returning to Brazil after sixteen years, I expected to feel like an outsider. I worried about my Portuguese, about whether I would sound foreign in the country that once defined my earliest

memories. Instead, what unsettled me most was not language, but perspective. I arrived having largely lost faith in multilateralism. That outlook had been shaped in part by my experiences as a law student and through work in the public and health sectors, where institutional constraints, competing interests, and procedural complexity often make collective decision-making appear slow and imperfect. From afar, the international system can seem paralysed, divided by ideology, slowed by process, and constrained by national priorities. The prevailing narrative suggests cooperation is eroding, democracies are retreating, and global consensus is increasingly unattainable.

Working within the Loss and Damage track under the Warsaw International Mechanism challenged that assumption almost immediately. What I observed was not dysfunction, but a system operating as designed: slowly, deliberately, and through relationships. Negotiations rarely resembled the dramatic confrontations portrayed in headlines. Instead, they unfolded through careful technical engagement. Text was examined line by line and word by word, with delegates debating the implications of a single verb or comma. Formal interventions signalled disagreement, but they were typically only the starting point. Negotiators proposed alternative phrasing, tested formulations aloud, and adjusted language until it reflected a shared position. Compromise did not appear suddenly; it was built sentence by sentence. Progress was incremental, but it was measurable.

Equally instructive were the interactions beyond formal sessions. Conversations with negotiators from the Dominican Republic, Japan, China, and Brazil revealed something that rarely features in commentary on global diplomacy: despite vastly different political systems and national priorities, many were motivated by a broadly similar objective, improving conditions for their citizens. It may sound idealistic, but witnessing this firsthand reshaped my understanding of international politics. Divergent ideologies did not erase a common goal of stability, development, and security at home; rather, they shaped how each delegation pursued it. Recognising that shared foundation did not eliminate genuine conflicts of interest, but it reframed them. Negotiations were not simply contests between states; they were processes mediated by individuals attempting, within constraints, to advance the welfare of those they represent.

This realisation also altered how I understood the dynamics of agreement-making. Many of these negotiators had built professional relationships over years, sometimes decades, and those relationships often sustained dialogue even where formal positions diverged. Having previously worked in community settings, I had seen how trust can make cooperation possible in difficult circumstances.

Observing the same principle operating at the highest levels of climate diplomacy was striking: the logic that relationships enable agreement proved just as true in multilateral negotiations as it does in local contexts.

What ultimately changed for me was not a sudden optimism about global governance, but a recalibrated understanding of how it functions. Multilateralism is not persuasive because it is efficient; it is persuasive because it is relational. Agreements emerge not only from institutional frameworks, but from trust built through sustained dialogue. Seeing those relationships in practice and seeing them hold even amid disagreement made clear that cooperation is not disappearing. It is simply quieter, more technical, and more human than it appears from the outside.

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The views and opinions expressed by Global Voices Fellows do not necessarily reflect those of the organisation or its staff.