Countries have adopted the agenda of the UN Bonn climate talks after an extra day of negotiations, following disagreements over the inclusion of items on climate finance and climate-related trade measures, which caused delays.
The adopted agenda was a compromise, in which the two agenda items were not included, but will be addressed in other ways. The topic of trade measures — in effect carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAM) — will be discussed under other relevant agenda items. For the climate finance topic, which refers to developed countries' obligations to provide climate finance to developing nations, Bonn chairs will hold consultations and report back at the UN Cop 30 climate summit, set for November.
The Bonn technical negotiations — halfway-point talks before Cop conferences each year — were scheduled to begin on 16 June, but the plenary was suspended as parties failed to agree on the agenda.
The outgoing Azeri Cop 29 presidency oversaw further negotiations on the agenda. In the talks' opening plenary, which re-started today, India's representative said that the country was "extremely disappointed" with developed countries' "reluctance" to discuss "legal obligations" for climate finance. India will return to the topic at Cop 30, the country's representative said — echoed by Tanzania.
The EU's representative welcomed the agenda's adoption. "It is hard to remain silent when our positions and our motivations are mischaracterised by our partners. This is a multilateral process in which the views of all parties must be respected… we work here together to reach compromises to allow us to move forward", he added.
Finance remains a central issue in climate negotiations. At Cop 29 last year, almost 200 countries agreed on a new goal to provide $300bn/yr in climate finance to developing nations by 2035. The Cop 29 finance outcome was significantly lower than the trillions of dollars sought by developing countries, which expressed frustration at the time. But the text also called on "all actors… to enable the scaling up of financing to developing country parties for climate action from all public and private sources to at least $1.3 trillion/yr by 2035". Consultations on a roadmap to achieve that level will take place in Bonn.
The EU's CBAM was a point of contention during the Cop 28 and 29 talks, with countries such as China and Brazil raising concerns about its impact on developing countries.
The European Commission expects the CBAM, when fully phased in, to capture more than half of the emissions covered by the bloc's ETS. The scheme's full implementation starts on 1 January 2026, but its impact is already starting to be felt.
