LIVE UPDATES: Bonn Climate Conference 2025
LIVE Updates
We’re bringing you the latest updates from the Bonn Climate Conference 2025. Follow the activities and announcements live.
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Negotiations on how the world will tackle climate change have officially started in Bonn, Germany, after parties finally adopted the agenda.
Heightened tension and uncertainty raged over SB 62 as countries battled over what to include in the negotiations.
This deadlocked the summit until late Tuesday night when negotiators agreed on the items.
As the deadlock raged, countries continued to hold bilateral meetings to smooth out the contentious issues.
Besides the procedural matters, 12 agenda items were approved for discussions.
The indicators of the Global Goal on Adaptation, just transition and Loss and Damage are some of the key issues to be negotiated.
Food and agriculture also feature in the agenda under the Sharm el-Sheikh joint work on implementation of climate action.
To some, the delay signalled a lack of urgency among countries to combat the climate crisis.
To others, it was an opportunity to voice their climate concerns.
‘‘Climate negotiations are a democratic process,’’ notes Saada Mohamed, a senior climate finance associate at Power Shift Africa.
She adds: ‘‘Parties must agree on the agenda before proceeding to discussions.’’
UN climate chief Simon Stiell is now asking countries of the world to move with speed in the next eight days to ‘‘deliver concrete progress.’’
‘‘Even if imperfect, even if no country or group gets everything it wants, climate multilateralism has delivered clear progress at each recent COP,’’ said Stiell.
However, the momentum has been lacking in the process.
‘‘[We] need to demonstrate to the world that climate cooperation can deliver. Now more than ever,’’ Stiell reminded the world during the opening ceremony.
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The first day of the Bonn Climate Conference (SB62) ended in an impasse after countries failed to adopt the agenda of the climate conference.
This came after Bolivia introduced new items on the agenda that were contested by developed countries.
Bolivia wants the conference to discuss the implementation of Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement. The article states that developed countries “shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties”.
This comes at a time when finance commitments and pledges have slackened.
As the deadlock at SB 62 enters the second day, tension is mounting tension globally as Israel and Iran go to war.
President Trump left the G7 meeting in Canada early, possibly to intervene in the Middle East crisis.
On Monday, Bolivia also proposed a second item on “promoting international cooperation and addressing the concerns with climate change-related trade-restrictive unilateral measures”.
This is seen to target the EU’s tax on the carbon emissions of certain imported products.
These two ‘‘highly contentious’’ items kept the negotiations from taking off.
Climate negotiations adopt the agenda by a unanimous decision. If one Party blocks the omission or inclusion of an item in the agenda, it fails to pass.
Climate negotiations cannot begin formally until the agenda is adopted. However, Parties often reach a compromise to carry on with the negotiations and adopt the agenda later to formalise decisions.
One month ago, the Brazilian COP30 Presidency cautioned against “introducing potentially contentious new agenda items’’.
Brazil argued at the time that new items could burden the process further. They also saw new agenda items as a distraction from agreed priorities.
When asked about the impasse at SB 62, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said a lot was ‘‘still in progress.”
By Tuesday, 11:00 AM Bonn time, the ceremony had not started, with the main plenary starting to fill up.
