The negotiations at the Bonn climate conference ended late last night after two weeks of procedural fights, stalled progress across nearly every negotiating track, and disputes over agenda items.
The conference, meant to lay the groundwork for the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, in Brazil later this year, has put Brazil in a difficult position in November to mend fences and find a way forward.
The smaller, more focused layout of the conference allowed for an intimate look inside the back-room discussions between countries that gets lost at the larger, more chaotic COPs. In Bonn, I once found myself sitting at a lunch table, sandwiched between the lead members of the India delegation and the Like-Minded Developing Countries, each group going line-by-line through the text they were about to negotiate.
Though the process was slow and many found the outcome lackluster, the conference showed that multilateralism prevailed. Late into the evening yesterday, countries had come to a compromise on the thorny issue of adaptation and sent an informal text on loss and damage to be used as a base for discussion at COP30.
“This has been a tricky conference in Bonn in many ways; not quite the plain sailing that COP30 Presidency Brazil was hoping for,” says Debbie Hillier, head of the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance program at Mercy Corps and a U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change policy lead.
But, Hillier says, there were “glimmers of hope.”
One of the biggest takeaways was that countries agreed to a 10% increase in the UNFCCC core budget for the 2026-2027 period, raising it to €81.5 million (around $95 million). Nearly 200 countries agreed to the deal, which will rely on an increase in China’s contribution to 20% of the new budget. The U.S. was meant to contribute 22%, but Bloomberg Philanthropies has pledged to cover the contribution following President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the process.
Final say on finance
Last November, low- and middle-income countries left COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, tired and disappointed. They had fought hard to secure more public financing from high-income countries, but ultimately left with a measly promise of $300 billion annually, and an IOU known as the Baku to Belém Roadmap that promised discussions on how to stretch that to $1.3 trillion leveraging finance from “all actors,” including the private sector.
Developing countries reignited their push for more public climate finance at Bonn, only to find developed nations unwilling to reopen the discussion. Low- and middle-income countries arrived in Germany determined to put Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement — which mandates finance from developed to developing nations — back on the agenda. But that push was blocked, and negotiators were left with only three-minute speaking slots to express their concerns during a brief consultation.
In the absence of progress on traditional financing, a new — or rather, old — set of ideas is gaining attention: innovative taxes on the ultrawealthy, luxury goods, and high-emitting industries. Once dismissed as politically unrealistic, these proposals are now being revisited by a growing coalition of countries looking for ways to fund climate action without relying solely on bilateral aid.
With trust eroding and public finance still elusive, the Bonn meetings offer a snapshot of a global climate finance system at a crossroads. As COP30 in Brazil approaches, developing nations are signaling they won’t let the conversation end — even if the formal agenda says otherwise.
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+ As we pull down the curtains in Bonn, another pivotal summit to negotiate the future of development funding opens in Sevilla, Spain, this Monday — the fourth Financing for Development conference. As part of our programming, we recently hosted an exclusive discussion with influential climate funder Ahmed Saeed on accelerating climate finance in emerging markets. Devex Pro members can watch the briefing here.
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The glimmers
Negotiations around the Global Goal on Adaptation, or GGA, saw some progress. The hope was that negotiators would make decisions about how to narrow down 500 indicators to measure adaptation to just 100. But parties struggled, with one expert telling Devex that final debates got “heated.”
Countries fought late into the evening about whether to include Means of Implementation, or MoI, which refers to the resources and support that enable developing countries to take climate action. Canada, supported by the U.K., suggested using softer, broader language such as “incentives” and “all sources of finance,” which could include things such as favorable policies or support rather than direct financial support.
The Group of 77 coalition of developing countries and China, as well as Panama and the Alliance of Small Island States fought back, insisting that the indicators must explicitly reflect developed countries’ obligations under the Paris Agreement and rejecting any proposal without MoI indicators.
Ultimately, parties found a compromise that allowed them to keep MoI in the text to measure access, quality, and adaptation finance, including the provision of finance rather than then the mobilization. However, developing countries had to give up on other priorities. The Biennial Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flows, or BAR, which is a technical report published every two years is gone, and there’s nothing on transformational adaptation or the post-Glasgow commitment, which is a general term used to describe the ambition to fully implement the Paris Agreement post-COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.
It all falls to Brazil
Ana Toni, the executive director of Brazil’s COP30 presidency, sat down with me for an interview midway through the conference. She told me that “there’s always a possibility” that the slow start to Bonn could cause issues in Brazil, but they are intent on ensuring the issue doesn’t derail progress ahead of COP30.
“I understood that the consultations will not only happen in Bonn, but from Bonn to Belém ... so that when we come to COP30, we would know if that agenda item will come back,” Toni said.
Brazil is also joining the general narrative to go beyond public financing. “We need to make sure that we look at not only concessional money and grants and cooperation, but also guarantees that swap for climate,” she said. “Mainstreaming climate finance of all kinds is necessary ... What is different now is that there is urgency. We have seen how many floods, how many fires, wildfires, droughts, the heat waves in all our countries, people are dying.”
This doesn’t preclude public finance, however. “Public finance is absolutely key,” she added. “But we cannot put all of our efforts in one strategy.”
Toni also underlined that this COP will be about implementation, not declarations. “We are not looking for flashy or glamorous, big documents,” Toni said.
Brazil’s wider diplomatic agenda includes using the Group of 20 major economies’ and the BRICS/BASIC economic bloc’s — the latter being BRICS sans Russia — presidents to advance global south-south cooperation and coordinate on climate finance. “We needed to work very closely with our BASIC colleagues ... That’s the role of the COP30 presidency, … to work with all the groups together to ensure we have an environment of cooperation.”
As for the United States, Toni downplayed its absence. “We have 197 countries that are here, and we are working with them. If they want to engage in the action agenda, we will be very much welcoming them to work with us.”
Finally, the presidency is also monitoring the slow pace of new nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, which are due this year. With only 22 country plans submitted by the June deadline, Toni seems nervous. “It’s already a big concern,” she said. “We are doing a ton of bilateral meetings, but yes we may see a gap and I think this will be a good moment to hear from heads of states on how they want to deal with this issue. It is an opportunity for political leadership.”
Background: The US is a no-show at Bonn climate negotiations
Related opinion: The global development community should pay attention to NDCs
Missing pieces
Baku to Belém Roadmap: There were several informal discussions on this road map, which promises to secure $1.3 trillion annually by 2030, but no real progress. Brazil is considering a retreat at the end of July to secure buy-in from countries. A draft of the road map is set to publish at the beginning of September.
The presidency says there is not meant to be a negotiated outcome on the road map, but it remains unclear how Brazil is building the text or who they are consulting, says Mariana Paoli, Christian Aid’s global advocacy lead. We also don’t yet know who is invited to this retreat. Brazil set up a “Circle of Ministers,” which includes 30 countries, but several countries expressed frustration in Bonn that they still don’t know how the circle will work.
Loss and damage: The issue of loss and damage was not a particularly big stand-alone topic of the Bonn discussions. Because the fund is already operational, with an executive director and a home at the World Bank, it has begun to move away from the UNFCCC process.
“I think this is very, very concerning,” says Paoli. “We know that loss and damage is essential for those communities most affected. We know it’s heavily dependent on grants-based finance and given the challenges we are witnessing in the politics of finance, there is a major risk that very little will be secured.”
Where will we go in 2026? There are many unresolved issues that came out of Bonn, but one that we were all hoping to hear about was who will host COP31 in 2026. The competition is between Turkey and Australia — with Australia fighting for a joint COP with Pacific island nations to highlight vulnerable countries — but the decision is yet to be made.
Opinion: Progress on loss and damage fund shows climate is global priority
A possible underdog?
Something to keep an eye on: City heads are fighting for involvement in the UNFCCC debates, whether that’s through being included by their national governments or by having their own delegation.
“We’re more connected to the reality of the fight,” says Eric Garcetti, the ambassador for global climate diplomacy at the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. “We want to be incorporated into the process, not just have a seat at the table.”
Garcetti also believes that city leaders are uniquely well-positioned for such a role because they have direct access to communities while also being fluent in the bureaucracy needed to join formal processes.
For now, Garcetti, who is a former mayor of Los Angeles and former U.S. ambassador to India, says that they are “not waiting for international leaders” to make moves. “It’s nice when you have a national leader, but if the U.S. is out, we’re in. We need to make these commitments, no matter who is leading.”
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About the author
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.
