To revamp Belgium's climate targets, the government first needs to change the country's constitution | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images Rickety Belgian federation has trouble dealing with climate demands The constitution needs to be amended to change climate targets.

Belgium is one of the world's most decentralized federal states.

But a governing structure aimed at keeping hostile Walloon and Flemish tribes inside a single country is turning out to be very ill-suited for reacting quickly to growing pressure to do more to tackle climate change.

To revamp Belgium's climate targets, the government first needs to change the country's constitution, according to the country's Council of State — Belgium's highest court tasked with advising the government on legal issues. But a parliamentary vote held early Friday fell short.

Ahead of the vote, growing ranks of climate protesters demanded the amendment's passage.

“I’m here to ask something more from the politicians than they’re offering us right now. They’re promising things to us but they’re not doing anything, and we just have enough of it,” said Natalia Osmolik, 20, speaking at an improvised camp site set up by climate protesters in central Brussels to keep pressure on politicians.

Constitutional conundrum

The reason that the constitution needs to be amended is that climate policy is largely a regional competence. That means policy is hammered out between the federal government and the regions in open-ended discussions that often fail to lead to a common position.

This complex arrangement is aimed at ensuring the delicate balance between the country’s three regions — Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels — and the federal government. But it's not doing a great job of dealing with global warming.

Belgium is likely to miss its 2020 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent compared to 2005 levels, as well as generating 13 percent of its power through clean sources of energy. In 2017, Belgium generated only 9.1 percent of its electricity from renewables, one of the worst performances in the EU.

“It’s a failure,” said Karine Lalieux, Socialist MP, of the federal problem.

Instead of interminable discussions among various levels of government, the idea was to tweak the constitution to mandate a special climate law. This law would propose cutting emissions by 55 percent by 2030, and 95 percent by 2050. But changing the constitution needs a two-thirds majority in parliament.

The change was only narrowly adopted by a parliamentary committee earlier this week, and early Friday morning it fell short of the needed two-thirds majority by the full parliament with 76 votes in favor and 66 against.

The idea was backed by the green Ecolo-Groen party and the Socialists as well as the governing liberal Francophone Reformist Movement (MR) of Prime Minister Charles Michel and other small parties.

However, three Flemish parties opposed it — the separatist N-VA, the liberal Open Vld and the Christian democratic CD&V. They're cautious about giving more power to the federal government and together hold 62 seats in the 150-member lower chamber of parliament — constituting a blocking minority.

“The competence sits primarily with the regions,” said Servais Verherstraeten, the leader of CD&V in the federal parliament.

But those constitutional concerns don't impress environmental groups.

"We don't have a legal problem, we have a political lack of will to advance on a solution to get us out of the current impasse," said Nicolas Van Nuffel, president of Coalition Climat, an umbrella organization of Belgian climate NGOs.

For demonstrators camped outside parliament before the vote, a failure of the amendment could affect how they vote in the country's federal election on May 26.

“It’s mixed feelings. I want to vote, I want to take part in it, but at the same time I feel like whatever you vote, it doesn’t end up the way you really want it to go,” said 21-year-old protester Marina De Ville.

This article has been updated with the results of the Friday morning vote.