SPGET vs COP: Coaliciones que no esperan a los rezagados

Complex designs fail when their core becomes the main obstacle. It happens precisely when centralized architecture shifts from fortress to bottleneck. The COP process reached that point. The creation of SPGET, a parallel scientific panel focused on energy, follows the logic that any structure adopts when its central nodes collapse.

The launch of the Permanent Symposium on Energy Governance and Transition, with Colombia as host and a coalition of emerging economies as its axis, institutionalizes frustration accumulated over years. The scant echo in mainstream media says more about their priorities than about the real importance of the event.

The question that matters is not whether SPGET will succeed. It's why it was necessary to create it.

The COP process demands universal consensus. Sounds fair until you observe how it functions: any actor can veto progress. Saudi Arabia dilutes references to ending fossil fuels. The United States abandons the Paris Agreement without binding accountability. The result is voluminous texts, toothless promises, and summits that generate more private jet emissions than real change. The transition timelines that emerge from there remain just that. Each country reads them as it suits them.

This dynamic has appeared before. The Montreal Protocol demonstrated another route in 1987. It didn't wait for total agreement. It advanced from a coalition with UNEP, atmospheric scientists, and Nordic countries willing to move. Some developing governments rejected it as a disguised barrier. The coalition set standards, created economic pressure, and achieved universal coverage in less than ten years. It worked because the data were clear, opposing interests were concentrated, and benefits outweighed the costs of waiting.

SPGET replicates that architecture with an uncomfortable difference. The economic interests it faces are global in scale. Chlorofluorocarbons were a chemical niche. Fossil fuels sustain entire economies, sovereign funds, and intertwined banking networks. The comparison with Montreal illustrates the method but doesn't guarantee the outcome. That gap exists and any honest reading must point it out.

Who wins from this? The question cuts better than official statements. Renewable energy industries gain regulatory certainty to attract long-term capital. Countries without relevant fossil reserves get a tool to claim less biased rules. Colombia, as host, achieves diplomatic visibility that exceeds its traditional geopolitical weight. It's not a minor detail for an economy seeking greater regional presence.

The group that obtains something more elusive is the scientific community. The IPCC transformed technical agreement into recognized political input. It also became slow and subject to governmental reviews before publishing summaries. A parallel panel on energy, free from that filter, recovers speed and autonomy. Institutionalization exposes critical functions to the same forces it was meant to limit: the IPCC isn't captured, but its design leaves it vulnerable.

Here enters a geopolitical dimension that's usually ignored. SPGET emerges while the Democracy Report 2026 records democratic backsliding, erosion of multilateral consensus, and powers abandoning pacts without paying internal price. In that landscape, parallel structures aren't whim. They're adaptation. Emerging economies, historically relegated by the G7 and OPEC, build their own gravity poles. That doesn't fragment order. It redistributes it.

Networks that self-organize when a central node becomes saturated offer a useful analogy. Instead of collapsing, they reroute flow. Something similar happens with these middle-income countries that stopped waiting for permission. The trend repeats throughout history when official channels become obstructed.

It remains unresolved whether two panels with partially overlapping mandates produce clarity or confusion. The balance can tip either way. If SPGET generates rigorous standards that the COP process can't ignore, it will act as an amplifier. If its detractors use it to claim that science no longer speaks with one voice, it will serve as an excuse. Distributed structures better resist point failures. They also expose themselves to breaks in the common narrative.

The COP process carries a built-in defect that no internal summit can repair: it was built to manufacture consensus, not action. When that consensus becomes impossible because veto holders defend direct economic interests, the failure isn't accidental. It's a consequence of design. Creating alternative routes doesn't mean giving up. It means accepting it and working around it, exactly what structures that endure do.

That it's scientists and middle-economy nations who drive this change, instead of the powers that control the traditional order, reveals where the real energy of transformation beats today. Not in the centers, but in the margins.

What will happen when these parallel panels begin producing recommendations that the biggest emitters can no longer easily ignore?

1. Molina, M. & Rowland, F.S. (1974). "Stratospheric sink for chlorofluoromethanes: chlorine atom-catalysed destruction of ozone." Nature, 249, 810–812. — Scientific basis of the Montreal Protocol.

2. UNEP (1987). Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. — Original text of the agreement and its coalition structure.

3. IPCC (2023). Sixth Assessment Report: Synthesis Report. — Current institutional framework and its process limitations.

4. V-Dem Institute (2026). Democracy Report 2026. — Context of global institutional erosion.

5. UNFCCC (2023). Global Stocktake — COP28 Outcome Document. — Analysis of negotiated language on fossil fuels and its binding limitations.