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BONN INTERSESSIONALS: The Good, the Bad, and the Stalled
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It was 10 p.m. Thursday, June 18, when the closing plenary session of the Bonn Intersessional Conference (SB64) finally began, reflecting two weeks of deadlock in the negotiations. These intersessional conferences, held annually between major climate conferences, are the technical forum where countries advance their agendas ahead of the Conferences of the Parties (COP). For two weeks, delegates from around the world attempted to make progress on the most urgent issues: adaptation, finance, emissions reduction, and a just transition.
The result: several major impasses and numerous issues deferred to COP31 in Antalya this November—a signal of the state of climate multilateralism in growing geopolitical tensions.
“We can only affirm and believe in multilateral process if we honour what we have agreed” - Ghana, on behalf of the African Group of Negotiators
What happened in the Bonn negotiations, and what does this bode for COP31? Our intern, Nina Dimitrov, was present during the first week of Bonn and able to observe the discussions from the inside. Here is our analysis of the main negotiating agendas to help break it all down.
Climate Finance: Still the Crux of the Matter
“Where is the money?” Iran, Opening Plenary Session
Once again, climate finance wasn't only one issue among many; it was an underlying theme of almost every discussion, making it difficult to make any progress without the question of financing stalling the discussions.
“We cannot discuss ambition without means of implementation.” - Tanzania, Opening Plenary Session
One of the central sticking points in Bonn was Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, which commits developed countries to providing financing to developing countries. Northern countries argue that they are fulfilling their obligations; climate finance reached a record $136.7 billion in 2024. But since then, massive cuts in development aid programs, particularly from the United States, have caused flows to plummet while needs are exploding. Moreover, even this record falls far short: at COP29, countries pledged to mobilize $300 billion annually by 2035, a target many already consider insufficient.
Many Global South countries therefore wanted the Climate Finance Work Program, launched at COP30 in Belém, to focus exclusively on mandatory public financing. Canada, the EU, and Norway refused. The COP30 president intervened unusually, requesting that this item be placed on the COP31 agenda, a move perceived as interference by some Northern countries.
With no agreement on the scope of the work program, the issue is being sent back to Antalya, with a real risk of a battle over the agenda as soon as COP31 opens.
Mitigation: The Only Dedicated Space for Emissions Reductions Fails to Deliver Results
The Mitigation Work Programme (MWP) is the only formal UN negotiation forum specifically dedicated to accelerating emissions reductions between cycles of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). In Bonn, it was supposed to make progress on its scope, modalities, and future beyond 2027.
The main divide was between countries (including small island developing states, least developed countries (LDCs), and the EU,) that wanted the MWP to produce concrete guidance on what needs to be done, and those (including China, Saudi Arabia, and the LMDC group) that wanted to limit it to a simple forum for exchanging ideas, without targets or prescriptive guidelines. The issue of financing surfaced again as another major sticking point.
Ultimately, even a minimal five-point text could not be adopted, sending the matter back to COP31 without conclusions. In the closing plenary session, many delegations expressed their disappointment.
Fossil Fuel Transition: Off the Agenda, but Still Present
Although officially absent from the agenda, the transition away from fossil fuels (TAFF) was nonetheless a hot topic in several rooms and fueled many conversations in the corridors. The COP30 president held a session on the informal roadmap for the fossil fuel transition, which he had announced would present at COP31 after a lack of consensus prevented its inclusion in the formal text in Belém. The room overflowed with observers.
Eighteen individual parties and three negotiating groups (representing 103 countries) submitted their positions on the Brazilian roadmap, but participation was absent from the countries that had blocked the process in Belém, with the exception of Russia. Canada did not make a submission nor an intervention on the TAFF roadmap, despite Canadian civil society representatives having been informed at Santa Marta that Canada would make a submission. Head of delegation Jeanne-Marie Huddleston indicated in a meeting organized by Climate Action Network at Bonn that they had missed the submission deadline and that no decision had been made to develop a national TAFF roadmap.
“Santa marta is a leading example on international cooperative effort to deliver GST outcomes” - Marshall Islands, UAE Dialogue |
Several countries also praised the Santa Marta Conference—the first international summit dedicated to this transition, held in Colombia last April—as an example of what voluntary coalitions outside the UN framework can achieve. It remains to be seen whether these initiatives will succeed in establishing themselves as genuine collective tools, or whether they will fizzle out due to a lack of formal framework.
Climate Adaptation: Dead Ends and Disappointments
Although several countries announced in the opening plenary session their intention to prioritize adaptation in Bonn, the negotiations failed to produce any agreement. The delegates were expected to advance the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), the framework guiding countries' efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change. At COP30, 59 monitoring indicators were adopted with difficulty, and a commitment was made to triple adaptation funding by 2035, but without specifying how.
The main point of contention was, again, financial: countries of the Global South demanded that the tripling commitment be explicitly included in the GGA text. Canada, Japan, and Norway refused, arguing that the issue fell within the scope of other negotiations. Disagreements over the composition of the expert group tasked with refining the indicators and over the Baku Roadmap on adaptation further exacerbated the impasse.
With all those tensions, the delegates failed to reach an agreement on any text, not even a procedural one. The matter was therefore referred back to COP31 without conclusions. In the closing plenary session, the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) described the outcome as "completely unacceptable." Let's hope that Antalya can break the deadlock that arose in Bonn.
Just Transition: Progress Continues
“Climate ambition is inseparable from protecting livelihoods and food security” - New Zealand, JTWP Contact Group
In Bonn, the negotiations on the just transition focused primarily on two areas: the adoption of the terms of reference for the evaluation of the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP), and the operationalization of the BAM (Belém Action Mechanism, now called the Belém-Antalya Mechanism), a concrete mechanism to support workers and communities in global decarbonization, whose adoption in Belém had been championed and welcomed by civil society.
Despite efforts from the co-facilitator to streamline the negotiations, the first week was largely concentrated on procedural discussions on the terms of reference, to the detriment of substantive discussions on the mechanism. Deep disagreements persisted regarding the governance of the BAM, its link with the JTWP, and the role of non-state actors. Some groups, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, refused to even acknowledge the basic elements of the text produced by the co-facilitators.
Nevertheless, Bonn ultimately delivered a concrete result: the terms of reference were adopted, and a set of texts to advance the BAM was approved unanimously in the closing plenary session, laying the groundwork for more substantive negotiations by November.
Science Under Attack
In Bonn, an unexpected front emerged: that of climate science itself. In several negotiating rooms, delegations attempted to remove references to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the 1.5°C target, challenging the data on climate tipping points. The timing of the IPCC's Seventh Assessment Report (AR7) was also a point of contention: several countries wanted to expedite it so that it would contribute to the next Global Stocktake (GST2) of climate commitments, which begins at COP31. Saudi Arabia, India, China, and Russia blocked any alignment.
In the second week, a press conference bringing together the EU, Switzerland, small island states, and Latin American countries denounced "coordinated attacks" against science by interests linked to fossil fuels.
Toward COP31: Time for Decisions
“There is a clear line between negotiations and implementations on the ground so we are trying to get the highest efficiency from these streams” - Turkish COP31 presidency, (translated from Turkish), Opening Plenary Session
Bonn was supposed to prepare the ground for a COP31 focused on implementation. The current record is rather bleak, with numerous deadlocks leaving several key issues unresolved.
It is in this context that the second Global Stocktake (GST2) will open in Antalya, a two-year process that will assess the world's progress on its climate commitments and guide the next wave of national climate plans. One encouraging step: 143 new climate plans have been submitted (the NDCs 3.0), 90% of which claim to have been informed by the first Global Stocktake results, as required under the Paris Agreement. On paper at least, the will to act exists, but it remains to be seen whether the resources will follow, or whether GST2 will become bogged down in the same gridlock that paralyzed Bonn.
All this in a context that makes the urgency of action even more pressing: cuts in development aid, intensifying climate impacts, and geopolitical tensions that complicate compromises. What happens in these rooms is not abstract; the decisions, or lack thereof, influence the world's ability to curb climate change and adapt to the impacts already underway. Stronger leadership is hoped for by November so that the negotiations are commensurate with the urgency. COP31 must deliver where Bonn failed.
To this end, several levers could help avoid future deadlocks. First, the two presidencies - Turkey and Australia - should present a clearer joint vision and engage early on the thorniest issues, particularly climate finance and adaptation, before COP31 even opens in Antalya. The negotiation processes themselves must also evolve, as civil society and several Parties have been calling for in recent years, through more efficient procedures focused on implementation, and a reduction of fossil fuel lobbying influence - more than 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists were accredited at COP30, one in every 25 participants, a record proportion.
Finally, science must remain at the heart of the UN process: countries must uphold what they themselves agreed to under the UNFCCC ; that the best available science guides climate decisions. Civil society, particularly from the Global South and Indigenous peoples, also has a key role to play in holding Parties accountable to their commitments. But this requires that representatives from all regions of the world have real and equitable access to these conferences, otherwise, the same voices will always shape the decisions.
