As UN warns of ‘detour’ midway to COP 29, where are climate talks at?

Climate finance was the main topic during the United Nations’ annual midyear climate talks, in which strong differences between countries made it difficult to achieve the progress needed on the way to COP 29. Inconclusive negotiations to advance other aspects of the Paris Agreement also highlighted tensions between the global south and north. From June 3 to June 13, U.N. member states met in Bonn, Germany, to move forward on the technical aspects of the political decisions that must be made at the next U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties, or COP 29, in November in Baku, Azerbaijan. Considered key for an ambitious implementation of the Paris Agreement, this iteration of the Bonn Climate Change Conference extended to negotiations on a range of other aspects, including emissions reduction plans and carbon markets. “I can say that we've taken modest steps forward, here in Bonn. But we took a detour on the road to Baku. Too many issues were left unresolved. Too many items are still on the table,” Simon Stiell, head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, said at the closing plenary. Negotiations concluded in the early hours of June 14, with sharp differences between countries. Five overarching themes that expose divisions are: climate finance and defining a new global goal; the mitigation work program to urgently reduce emissions; preparing enhanced nationally determined contributions; finalizing the Paris Agreement Article 6 carbon market rules; and ensuring an ambitious COP 29 given Azerbaijan's oil and gas dependence. 1. Finance: The complicated task of defining a new global goal As anticipated during the conference, the work for the new collective quantified goal, or NCQG, that must be defined at the next COP 29, did not go as expected. “Across the board, negotiation tracks nearly ran off the rails with rich countries blocking the finance needed to make climate action happen,” Teresa Anderson, global lead on climate justice at ActionAid International, told Devex at the end of the conference. “Developing countries have been carrying the costs of the climate crisis, and their patience is now stretched beyond bearing,” she added. Developed countries tried to expand the base of contributors so that other countries — such as China — and the private sector could also mobilize money. In addition, they tried to limit the destination of monetary aid to the most vulnerable nations, and they did not propose a specific sum of money to be provided, as the African group and the Arab group did, in the range of $1.1 trillion to $1.3 trillion per year. “Developed countries have refused to engage in how much public money they are willing to provide. This is despite climate finance being key to staving off climate catastrophe, and a legal obligation under the Paris Agreement and the climate Convention”, Mariana Paoli, global advocacy lead at Christian Aid, said in a statement. Developing countries demanded that the new goal be made up of public money, reaching everyone without exclusivity, in the form of grants and not loans, and with clear progress in discussing a numerical figure. “At the Bonn talks, developed countries failed to clarify their financial commitments and this underscores a frustrating barrier to progress,” Harjeet Singh, global engagement director at the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, told Devex. “Rich countries must urgently fulfill their climate finance obligations by committing to new, additional, and scaled public finance in the form of grants,” he stressed. Co-facilitators managed to produce a 35-page “input paper” on NCQG, without being able to resolve a range of differences to achieve a cleaner text. While the content has been “streamlined … going into the NCQG,” according to Stiell, he requested of the parties that “clear options and substantive framework of a draft decision” be finalized before COP 29. How will this be achieved? The parties have been asked to submit updated views on the new financial goal to the co-chairs of the work program on NCQG. With that, the co-chairs will produce a new input text ahead of the next technical expert dialogue and the third meeting of the ad-hoc work program, both to be held in October. A high-level ministerial dialogue on NCQG will also take place that month. It is not yet clear whether, prior to October, other international events — such as the start of the U.N. General Assembly in September in New York — will be used to increase political momentum. For Sandra Guzmán, general director of the Grupo de Financiamiento Climático para Latinoamérica y el Caribe, “the text with which we leave Bonn is unbalanced, but it has the necessary elements. Now we have to polish it so that, whatever happens, we have a decision in Baku.” 2. Mitigation: The race to limit warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius At the closing plenary, there was widespread discontent due to the lack of momentum in the negotiations on the mitigation work program that was adopted at COP 27, whose goal is to urgently scale up mitigation ambition and implementation. “We have failed to show the world that we are responding with the purpose and urgency required to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. We are almost halfway through this critical decade, and we need to halve global emissions by 2030,” Anne Rasmussen, lead negotiator of the Alliance of Small Island States, argued in the closing plenary. Enrique Maurtúa Konstantinidis, senior climate policy consultant, summed it up bluntly: “Countries were unable to agree on anything. … The main conflict was whether there were going to be substantial or procedural conclusions.” An informal note showed some of the contrasting positions, such as to integrate the outcomes of the global stocktake into the planning of the future work of the mitigation program, or not; or to connect the program with the preparation of nationally determined contributions, or not. “The question we must ask ourselves is whether the work program that we have created to promote a drastic reduction in global emissions is meeting its objective”, Elena Pereira, lead negotiator for Honduras said in the name of the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean. Disputes on this issue are not new. Developed countries are usually the ones that demand an increase in mitigation ambition. The most vulnerable countries — such as small island states — usually support this request due to the impact of not reducing emissions on their survival. Developing countries agree, but argue that without climate finance, it is not possible for them to increase ambition. In terms of the next steps, the parties were invited to submit their updated views on the elements of a draft decision on the mitigation work program by Oct. 25. The UNFCCC secretariat was asked to prepare a synthesis report based on these submissions by next November. “The MWP is important. It’s the place where we should talk and agree on the actions needed in these next critical six years”, Maurtúa Konstantinidis explained. “There’s a lot of work to do from here to Baku if we really want the MWP to be useful for something. Having conversations for the sake of having them is of no use.” 3. NDCs: On the eve of a new round of commitments Amid all these discussions, parties are working — or should be — on the new nationally determined contributions that should increase climate action ambition. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that to limit warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, global carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced by 45% by 2030. The latest analysis from Climate Action Tracker shows that if the current commitments are met, we will be moving toward a warming scenario of between 2.1°C and 2.5°C. “In the next NDCs we need to see how developing countries need financing to be able to make the transition, how greater precision will be given with sectoral targets, how issues such as human rights will be better integrated,” said Marine Pouget, global governance policy adviser of Climate Action Network France, at a press conference. Yet again, finance is key: “Developed countries have to be more precise about how they will provide financial resources,” Pouget stressed. In the corridors between negotiations, observers told Devex that some countries are waiting for the NCQG definition to prepare their new NDCs or finalize details. The deadline for submitting the new round of NCD commitments is Feb. 10, 2025. 4. Article 6 and the complexity of carbon markets Progress on the implementation of Article 6, shorthand for the Paris Agreement’s article on carbon markets, was inconclusive. “We made some progress towards a better functioning international carbon market, but still have a way to go to get this over the line”, Stiell said. The discussions in Bonn focused on Article 6.2, and on the transparency needed around including the sale or transfer of emissions reductions into countries’ NDCs. “Parties obstructing a bare minimum for accountability and transparency in this article will turn this carbon market into a black box where hot air can be streamlined to ‘achieve’ NDCs and corporate climate targets”, Jonathan Crook, policy expert at Carbon Market Watch, said in a statement. The draft text for “cooperatives approaches” to Article 6 worked so far has a lot of options that some observers rated Devex as positive and others as not so great. “Countries need to be very clear about the level of action they plan under Article 6. So they need to be very clear what the domestic emissions reduction are,” Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics, said at a press conference. The last Climate Action Tracker report suggests that if a country uses an emission reduction credit under Article 6 for its own mitigation goal, that reduction should not be considered as part of its efforts to reduce emissions, but as additional emissions reductions. As of now, parties have agreed to hold a workshop ahead of November to further progress technical work on Article 6, which would then inform an outcome document at COP 29. 5. COP 29: All eyes on Azerbaijan “Every international summit between now and COP 29, such as the Ministerial on Climate Action and the G20, represents a critical opportunity to resolve deadlocks and elevate ambitions,” Singh said to Devex. For him, the hosts of COP 29 have to build on the outcomes of the last COP and ensure that the transition away from fossil fuels is not just a topic of discussion, but rather a central feature of revised NDCs. “This includes guarding against any dilution of focus on crucial climate finance and emissions reduction efforts,” Singh explained. COP 29 will be held from November 11 to 22 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Representatives of civil society view with some concern that COP 29 is taking place in a country where oil and gas represent more than 98% of its energy supply. “Last year we had a COP in a major oil and gas producer country. This year we are back again,” Climate Analytics’ Hare said. “The COP 29 is built as the 'finance COP.’ At the heart of that is the transition away from investments in fossil fuels. We have to switch off fossil fuels’ investments.” For Hare, unless that switch happens, warming won’t be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and talks on the new climate finance goal won’t matter. “I’m looking at the COP 29 as the opportunity to finally see that switch,” he added. The other concern of civil society lies in the guarantees of participation in the event. “For the climate talks to deliver just and effective action, the voices of those most impacted by climate harms and the fossil economy must be at the negotiating table,” Lien Vandamme, senior campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law, said in a statement. This is particularly important as yet another petrostate with a deeply repressive government is tasked with presiding over climate negotiations at a COP, she added. Given the inconclusive outcomes of these latest U.N. climate talks, the main task at hand is to galvanize bold commitment and real action ahead of COP 29. As ActionAid’s Anderson put it, given the climate emergency and thinly stretched patience of countries who are bearing the brunt of the impacts of climate change, “negotiations in Baku will be a fork in the road for planet Earth.”