There is a whiff of hope blowing through the multilateral system.
On May 21, an overwhelming majority of countries adopted a resolution proposed by Vanuatu to endorse the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on climate obligations, providing concrete ground to hold States responsible for climate inaction.
Just a month earlier, the world's first Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels conference wrapped up in the Colombian port city of Santa Marta, where many delegates left with a sense of relief that concrete, implementable solutions had finally been discussed at the required level of ambition.
The conference was widely seen as a welcome stimulant for the implementation-forward agenda of COP30; helped by the conference’s strong scientific underpinning.
It would be premature to read too much into these developments. There is still significant work to be done to ensure that scientific inputs reflect the full diversity of knowledge systems and are mobilized in a way that doesn't .
But these moments also point to a notable shift: science is increasingly functioning not only as a source of innovation and policy direction, but as the fertile ground where concrete solutions can take root and flourish.
From discovery to delivery: policy pathways for science-based solutions
Our recent Policy Brief, From Science to Policy: Planetary Solutions in Action, published in partnership with the Frontiers Policy Labs, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and UNESCO, . We reviewed findings from 25 leading research projects and asked a simple question: what's in there for policymakers?
The following case studies offer a glimpse of the innovative solutions we discovered:
- A new material to dissolve our plastic problems. Scientists in Japan have developed an alternative to conventional plastics that disassembles without generating persistent microplastics. In a single innovation, two of the most intractable pollution crises of our time, plastic waste and fossil-based material dependence, find a partial solution. The policy pathways run from R&D investment and public procurement standards to extended producer responsibility frameworks. A national government, a regional authority or a large company can move on this tomorrow, at whatever scale fits their context, knowing that the results point in the right direction. While the Plastics Treaty negotiations remain deadlocked, this innovation could directly and efficiently address both aspects of the Treaty: the production of plastics (upstream intervention) and its collection and retreatment (downstream intervention).
- Marine animals and the map we never had. A team of researchers in Australia compiled one of the largest global datasets of marine animal tracking ever assembled and used it to identify what they call Important Marine Megafauna Areas, critical zones for migratory species, including whales, sharks and sea turtles. Strikingly, they found that many of these habitats sit outside existing protected zones, and a large share are regularly exposed to shipping traffic and industrial fishing. Governments now have a spatial map they can use to expand marine protected areas, feed into current High Seas Treaty negotiations, and design concrete traffic separation schemes in sensitive corridors.
- A new wave of tools to manage water scarcity. The world has officially entered a state of water bankruptcy. In Peru, Senegal and the United States, concerns over how to effectively assess and monitor water have led research teams to test and deploy new models and sets of data. These new tools adopt a preventive and holistic approach, looking at the drivers of lake droughts associated with water cycles and human activities. This new input has the potential to become central to topics discussed at the upcoming in December 2026, where UN Member States will review progress on SDG 6 implementation (Water and Sanitation), and unlock solutions to advance it.
Measures for what counts
- The work of the National Champions in the Netherlands has already concretely helped to shape the outcomes of the High-Level Expert Group (HLEG) on Beyond GDP. In their , the HLEG has implemented the Dutch researchers’ proposals for a dashboard with a set of metrics that respond to persistent policy challenges, with three core dimensions: wellbeing, inclusion and sustainability. The incoming intergovernmental process will be crucial for its implementation at the national and regional level.
Weaving solutions into the fabric of negotiations
This type of work challenges claims that alternative policy solutions are scarce or do not exist. In the current political climate, where multilateralism is under pressure and the temptation to lower ambition is real, having a well-stocked and well-translated body of evidence and proven solutions is itself a form of resilience.
While translating science into policy is necessary, however, it is rarely sufficient. For solutions to reach their potential, they need to be woven into the fabric of multilateral negotiations and benefit from the political and institutional backing that allows them to scale beyond individual pilots or national experiments.
Several upcoming UN processes offer potential entry points. The 2026 UN Water Conference, the High Seas Treaty implementation discussions, ongoing negotiations under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Intergovernmental process for Beyond GDP are all arenas where this body of research can speak directly to what is being decided.
A science that fits local contexts
But what is perhaps most valuable about the solutions we discovered is that they do not prescribe a single pathway. Many function as modular or "plug-and-play" interventions: a national government, a regional authority an agricultural cooperative or a company can draw from this body of evidence and find something that is both compatible with their specific context and likely to produce results that contribute to the broader transition. Where multilateral negotiations provide a normative pull and a political push, research accelerates implementation at all levels.
This modular quality also reflects what Just Transitions genuinely look like in practice. There is no one-size-fits-all and the successful, long-term effort will be the ones that examine local variables, test hypotheses and refine approaches in light of results. As policymakers navigate an environment of imperfect choices, they can rely on scientific methods to test, proof and identify what has been shown to function, and flag where uncertainty persists.
As Johan Rockstr?m, who chairs the Frontiers Planet Prize jury, has noted, these kinds of solutions can move the needle because they are designed to work within constraints rather than ignoring them – making them far more likely to be implemented at the scale and speed the planetary crisis demands.
Read the Science Policy Brief .
