Dematerialization should be a high priority in addressing climate change, which is an existential threat that even outweighs COVID-19. Headline numbers from the UN IPBES report cite the potential extinction of over 1 million species. The report demands fundamental transformative change across “technological, economic, and social factors, including goals, paradigms, and values.” In this context, “global commons” issues require upgraded transnational frameworks for promoting development of less material-intensive production and consumption. Where, how, and by whom can these demands be met? Our go-to institution for the past decades, the World Trade Organization (WTO), is ill suited to these forthcoming tasks. Suffering from geopolitical pressures and energy-sapping incremental deals, WTO members have shown an unfortunate inability to adapt to the changing nature of trade. In the context of the climate challenges noted above, one of the WTO’s bedrock principles of “like products” will become increasingly untenable as a basis for tariffs. The erosion of the WTO’s dispute settlement function and its apparent inability to blunt protectionist actions on goods augurs against hope for leadership from its members. The WTO’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was originally designed as a highly flexible instrument but it has remained static in terms of freeing services flows: a flexible instrument in the hands of inflexible negotiators. The WTO TRIPs agreement on intellectual property rights, advanced a framework for cooperation, has ultimately has proven to be divisive.