No Surprises: Bonn Deliberations Offer a Glimpse of COP30

Every year, about five to six months before the meeting of the Committee of Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a summit is held in Bonn. This year it was held from June 16 to 26. The objective of the Bonn summit is to lay the foundations of what would ultimately be discussed in the following COP meeting. The deliberations at Bonn are held under the aegis of the two permanent subsidiary bodies of the UNFCCC, namely, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technical Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI).

The Bonn summit deliberations are usually not very smooth and in fact, quite acrimonious. The discord has increased over the past few years ever since transfer of funds for climate change from developed to developing countries has taken centrestage. This year too, the summit began on a sour note and the first two days were wasted in deciding as to what should be the agenda for discussion.

India's stand

India, backed by the Like Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs) and others, sought inclusion of two points in the agenda.

The first is related to Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement (PA) which speaks of transfer of resources from developed to developing countries to battle climate change.

The second was regarding the unilateral trade barriers, meaning the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) of the European Union. The point made by India was that $300 billion per year is too meagre an amount to be transferred and that it should be enhanced to $1.3 trillion per year. The trade barriers, meanwhile, were viewed as discriminatory and inimical to the spirit of the UNFCCC.

The developed world was against the inclusion of these two agenda points as stand-alone items but finally conceded to have the finance agenda deliberated through ‘substantial informal consultations’. The trade barriers were to be discussed under the ‘just transition work programme’.

Brazil which is going to host the next meeting of the COP (COP30) has stated that it will make all efforts to raise the transfer of resources to $1.3 trillion. Brazil, incidentally, is no push-over when it comes to climate change as it has been in the thick of it over the past several decades. This is in sharp contrast to the previous two hosts i.e. Azerbaijan in 2024 and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2023. In fact, there has been some criticism from certain quarters regarding the choice of the previous two venues since both Azerbaijan and the UAE are fossil-rich countries and promote their growth. From this angle, even Brazil is under a cloud as it is rich in oil and gas and only recently was a decision taken to auction 172 oil and gas blocks covering about 56,000 square kilometres. Brazil, incidentally, is the eighth largest oil producer globally.

Climate finance

When one speaks of climate change, the conversation inevitably moves towards climate finance. They have become synonymous. There are, however, several other issues which were discussed in Bonn and readers may not be familiar with all of them.

The first is on the global goal on adaptation (GGA) which was mentioned in the PA. There has been no progress in the matter since it was very loosely worded. On GGA, the PA speaks of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change (Article 7). Countries actually need to monitor certain parameters and no one really knew what they were. At one point of time, about 9,000 parameters were under discussion but now the list has been pruned to about 490 items. Efforts are on to bring it down further to about 100.

The irony is that when one speaks of GGA, the next question is about finance. From where will the resources come? To undertake adaptation measures, the developing countries speak of ‘means of implementation’ which is clearly uncomfortable to the developed world who would like to address it as ‘enablers of implementation’. The developed world would not like to address Article 9.1 of the PA solely but would like a more holistic approach and include funds from the private sector and also other sources, which includes contributions made by some developing countries.

The other issues discussed at Bonn included a global stock take (GST), gender action plan (GAP), and also the Warsaw international mechanism (WIM). GST is nothing but a measure of climate equity and also an assessment of the measures taken by the world collectively to meet the PA targets. GAP recognises the fact that women are disproportionately affected by climate change and that something needs to be done for them specifically. WIM deals with loss and damage issues arising from climate change especially in  vulnerable countries like the small island states. Unfortunately, in none of these issues was a consensus arrived at and they will now be discussed in the next round of COP in November 2025.

Late filing of Nationally Determined Contributions was also discussed as only 22 countries (out of 198) have filed their revised NDCs till date. Apart from the discussions on regular agenda items, there was a clamour for reforms in the functioning of the institutions like the UNFCCC, for example, removing outdated agenda points by having a sunset clause, moving to a majority-based decision making process as against a consensus, and so on. The size of delegations was also under scrutiny and views were expressed that there should be an upper limit in order to accommodate delegates within the existing hotel infrastructure.

Given the outcome of the discussions held in Bonn, one is almost sure of what is going to happen in the next round of COP in November 2025 and in all likelihood, there will be nothing to write home about. 

Somit Dasgupta, PhD, is a senior visiting fellow at ICRIER and former member (economic and commercial), CEA. Views are personal.

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