NewzAfter two weeks of climate negotiations riven by arguments over finance and science, the UN climate chief expressed disappointment and denounced governments for “cherry-picking” commitments they have already made and waiting for others to move first. In their final hours on Thursday evening, the talks tried – and failed – to reach a deal that would have balanced developing countries’ demands for reassurance on finance to help them adapt to climate impacts with richer nations’ desire to move forward with work on speeding up emissions reductions in line with science. Simon Stiell, the head of the UN climate body, released a statement as the Bonn talks wound up, saying that “in some negotiating rooms, we’ve heard a familiar tendency towards you-first-ism – groups refusing to deliver commitments or allow the process to move forward unless others go first”.
“This is a recipe for gridlock when we need all negotiating tracks to be moving in the fast lane,” he added. Gridlock is where the talks ended, with countries unable to agree conclusions on at least three major areas of climate action, including adaptation and mitigation, invoking “Rule 16”. That means they will be taken up again at COP31 in Türkiye in November.
Bonn Bulletin: Finance row threatens to scupper work on adaptation goal On the emissions reduction (mitigation) work programme, pushback – primarily from fossil-fuel producing nations – has prevented any meaningful progress since its creation at COP27, as countries have been unable to come up with a united vision for its scope and purpose. Despite many countries expressing disappointment at the end of Bonn, China argued that some common ground had been found that could serve as positive elements to build on at COP31, including that “no one is against mitigation implementation and ambition”. Adaptation “salt in our wounds” Small island states and developing nations spoke bitterly of the lack of progress on the global goal on adaptation, which had been expected to launch technical work on putting into practice indicators agreed at COP30 in Brazil, and said it had destroyed trust between countries.
Negotiations on the goal ended in deadlock after developed countries, including European governments refused to include a target to triple adaptation finance by 2035 that was agreed at COP30 in Brazil, insisting the text should focus on technical work to measu… One of the key tasks for this year’s Bonn talks is to agree on how to put into practice the indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation, which were hurriedly redrafted by governments at the end of COP30 after years of painstaking work by experts. Making them usable involves drawing up contextual information (metadata) and methodologies for the indicators.
They include metrics such as the number of people per 100,000 who are covered by early warning systems or the proportion of the population vulnerable to climate change that have access to mental health and psychosocial support. There has been some arguing in Bonn over who should do this work. More government negotiators or more technical experts?
Should there be an Indigenous Peoples representative on the taskforce? But the main sticking point – and the one that could prevent any agreement before the talks end today – is, as usual, finance. Developing countries are united in demanding that the COP30 agreement to triple adaptation finance by 2035 be referenced in the GGA agreement here in Bonn.
Summary from source