In light of escalating climate and biodiversity crises, peatlands are increasingly becoming a topic in global, European, and national environmental policy. The Peatland Breakthrough of the UNFCCC COP30 Action Agenda may mark a decisive turning point for accelerating global cooperation in the protection, restoration and wise use of peatlands and is set to constitute a key topic at COP30 in Belém, Brazil from a nature-based climate action perspective. While the European Union and Ukraine act as frontrunners in the legal and political recognition of peatlands through multilateral and aligned unilateral agree-ments—considering not only ecological and conservation-related but also security-related aspects—Russia is recently withdrawing from the global wetland protection mechanism, and the US withdraw in 2025 from the Paris Agreement.
This paper analyses the legal implications of these divergent developments and contextualizes global unilateral and multilateral tendencies in peatland climate protection with regard to expected outcomes of COP30.
