Technical climate talks at Bonn, to prepare for political negotiations at the UN Cop 30 summit in Belem, Brazil in November, look set to end with little progress on mitigation — actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions. As negotiations continue, the incoming Brazilian presidency has signalled it is seeking new avenues as formal processes have become bogged down.
New nationally determined contributions (NDCs), countries' climate plans to 2035, due this year, were not formally discussed in Bonn. Few nations have submitted them, so far, and commitments will once again likely be insufficient to limit global warming to 1.5°C. The Paris agreement seeks to curb the temperature rise to "well below" 2°C, and to pursue a 1.5°C limit.
Brazil on Wednesday called the NDCs a "portrait" of where states see themselves in 2035, saying that if it does not look good "we will need to work together to improve it."
Brazil and the EU may be pinning hopes on the leaders' summit at Cop 30 to cut through the logjam. The EU "sees value in having a political space for high-level discussions" in response to the NDC synthesis report, it said. This report — due to be released on 24 October — will sum up countries' NDCs as long as they are submitted by September. This could provide a focal point for action ahead of the conference.
Another avenue to find progress which Brazil has pushed is the "action agenda", a programme of voluntary initiatives by national and sub-national governments as well as civil society and private businesses, which runs alongside the formal negotiations between states.
There are hopes that the states seeking to push mitigation the most could create a "coalition of the willing," according to Andreas Sieber of environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) 350.org. This would generate momentum for initiatives which then make the leap to the negotiated process. This was the case for the pledge to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, which originated in the action agenda at Cop 28 in Dubai in 2023 but then made it into the formal outcomes of the summit. By engaging first with willing states, Brazil avoids obstructions, typically from large oil exporters.
Baku 2.0
But so far in Bonn, progress on a key element for mitigation — a programme to discuss the meaning of the global stocktake (GST) — has bogged down. The GST, conducted in Dubai in 2023, was a review of the progress on reaching the goals of the Paris accord. It expressed the need to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. But talks on the GST have stalled since, and one delegate expressed a fear that the talks could be entering the same realm as the mitigation work programme (MWP), another workstream which has delivered little progress.
Ensuring that discussion of options continues between Bonn and Belem will be key to lay the ground for solid outcomes once decision-makers are in the room, with some sensing a shift to more positive engagement.
But frustrations over a new $300bn/yr climate finance target for developing nations could resurface in Brazil. Developing and developed countries were at loggerheads on climate finance and mitigation into the last minutes of the Baku summit. Brazilian climate agency Observatorio do Clima said the focus on finance at Bonn was much more prominent than the incoming Cop presidency expected, with Cop 30 risking "becoming a Baku 2.0".
Meeting the priorities of many developing countries — more, better and accessible finance — may prove difficult. The Brazilian presidency said today that the Baku to Belem roadmap — a workstream decided on last year to work out ways to increase finance on to $1.3tn/yr — was supported by developing countries. But their priorities differ from those of G20 countries, the Brazil presidency said, implying that agreement may be hard to find. In the absence of the US, which did not send a delegation to Bonn, Brussels and Berlin have emerged as new blockers to talking about increasing finance, according to Victor Menotti of NGO Demand climate justice.
