Gathering at Bonn Climate talks
As the Bonn climate talks stumbled over the finish line on Friday June 27, there wasn’t much to celebrate. The feeling was more of relief that the process had held in a tough geopolitical environment, with small wins for work on just transition and adaptation.
UN climate chief made an exhausted appeal, acknowledging the negotiations had struggled in some areas.
“We have a lot more to do before we meet again in Belém… We must find a way to get to the hard decisions sooner,” said Simon Stiell, wrapping up the two-week session.
There certainly is a lot to get through in order to make COP30 in Brazil a success, not least because of scant progress on efforts to reduce emissions. On the bright side, Bonn laid the foundations for a new mechanism on a just transition to a low-carbon world and gave guidance on a list of indicators to measure global advances on adaptation, ideally to be agreed in Belém.
The step forward on adaptation came at the last minute after a compromise was reached to include indicators on the “means of implementation” – essentially finance. The scarcity of money to help the Global South adapt to a warming planet has been an Achilles heel of the UN climate process for years – and there will be pressure for a new target at COP30.
In Bonn, no decision was made – as the UN climate body had wanted – on which country will host COP31, as Türkiye refused to back down in the face of growing support for its rival Australia.
Another key task – approving the budget for the UN climate secretariat’s core activities in 2026 and 2027 – fared better, although the 10% increase mandated was less than the 24% the UNFCCC had asked for – and even that wouldn’t have been enough to cover everything it needs to do. With the US unlikely to pay its share of one-fifth, the begging bowl will be out.
“This is a modest but vital investment, because this process is humanity’s only means of preventing climate-driven global economic meltdown, with terrible human costs,” said Stiell.
“Just as we have no Planet B, there is no process B.”
Delegates huddle during informal consultations on the Global Goal on Adaptation. Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth
Bonn-on-Thames
Despite the vital achievements of that process in setting the world’s climate goals 10 years ago with the Paris Agreement, in the last few days there was more excitement over at London Climate Action Week (LCAW).
“Outside of these halls [in Bonn], the transition is accelerating,” noted Stiell – and that’s where the COP30 presidency put its efforts, with Brazil’s ministers and top diplomats making appearances at numerous events in London.
As we reported yesterday evening, Brazilian environment minister Marina Silva made an interesting suggestion there in response to a question from Climate Home about how to break the impasse on transitioning away from
fossil fuels in energy systems agreed at COP28.
For the first time, she proposed that a roadmap to guide “a planned and just transition to end fossil fuels” could come out of COP30, alongside another on halting forest loss and the already anticipated plan to boost climate finance for developing countries to $1.3 trillion a year by 2035. We’ll keep an eye on how the new idea goes down in diplomatic circles.
The LCAW event also discussed how the mining industry can break with the human rights abuses and polluting practices of the past in meeting rising demand for critical minerals needed in the clean energy transition.
The good news is that a concerted push for more robust regulation, community involvement and targeted funding could make responsible mining a reality, said experts on the panel we co-hosted with the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.