Negotiators convened in Bonn from 16 – 26 June 2025 for the year’s first round of UNFCCC negotiations. As a key milestone on the multilateral climate agenda, the 62nd session of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies (SB62) also offered Brazil, as incoming COP30 president, a platform to outline its vision. The negotiations demonstrated the hard work ahead to unlock divisions and forge unity, both in the negotiation tracks and in driving certainty around implementation around climate action. Yet, Brazil’s presentation of its vision – including through the Action Agenda – injected optimism and hope that the era of implementation will drive positive collective action. Strong diplomatic engagement – and leadership – will be needed to unblock these ahead of COP30.
Key Negotiating Dynamics
Brazil entered SB62 seeking to foster a constructive tone and make progress developing draft texts on three priority issues: the Global Goal on Adaptation, the Just Transition Work Programme, and the UAE Global Stocktake Dialogue. As laid out in our blog earlier this month, SB62 was also an important moment for the multilateral climate regime in an era of intense geopolitical turbulence.
Dynamics in Bonn revealed a continued yawning gap between the urgency of the climate crisis and the pace of response and, importantly, demonstrated the disconnect between real-world shifts, geopolitical pressures, negotiating positions, and outcomes that, left unaddressed, will prove to be an ever more difficult hurdle moving into Belém. The fallout from the NCQG negotiations in Baku continued to strain negotiations along familiar fault lines, with the opening plenary session being delayed to the evening of the second day due to an agenda fight.
Agenda fights over proposals from the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) group on trade-restrictive unilateral measures and the provision of finance by developed countries resurfaced divisions from Baku. The COP29 finance commitments are seen as vastly inadequate to meet the mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries, while developed countries face tightening fiscal space, worsening economic outlooks, and cuts to official development assistance (ODA). With the US stepping back, increasing public provision of climate finance is looking challenging. Without credible signals that finance flows will increase – particularly for adaptation efforts and responding to mounting loss and damage – and confidence that the Baku-Belém Roadmap to $1.3 trillion in annual climate finance for developing countries by 2035 will be implemented, these tensions will once again play out at COP30 in ways that frustrate progress on strengthening multilateral climate cooperation. As it has for over 30 years in this process, finance remains at the heart of the matter.
Divisions played out across three priority negotiation items. No agreement was reached on the UAE Dialogue on implementing the COP28 Global Stocktake outcomes, including tripling renewables, doubling efficiency and transitioning away from fossil fuels, with wide divergence of positions on the scope, modalities, and desired outcomes of any dialogue(s). A hard-fought compromise was reached on the Global Goal on Adaptation, though sharp divisions remain on indicators of progress around the means of implementation. The Just Transition agenda saw more progress, with the co-facilitators’ informal note capturing the full range of options proposed to support a structured, global approach, albeit with continued tension around the means of implementation. On all of these issues, Brazil must secure the political guidance needed to overcome sharp divisions and identify potential landing zones for final agreement in Belem.
Brazil’s Presidency and vision: driving action and implementation
Brazil showcased its COP30 vision via a fourth Presidency letter focused on the Action Agenda. This aims to support Global Stocktake (GST) implementation, with 30 objectives across six “axes” covering sectoral transition, nature, food, resilience, development and cross cutting issues such as finance. The letter also outlined a reinterpretation of the Global Stocktake as a “Globally Determined Contribution”.
Brazil’s innovative approach to reform the current regime to ensure it is fit for the implementation phase of climate action is commendable. More detail is now needed on how this works in practice to boost transparency, monitoring, and accountability and ensure that objectives can be implemented.
What needs to happen on the road to Belém: connecting negotiations and delivery for a common vision and impact
The challenge, and opportunity, now is to continue to build bridges and ensure collective action in both the negotiation rooms and in driving the implementation of the transition itself to ensure Belém is greater than the sum of its parts. The final COP30 outcomes have not yet been crystallised by either Brazil or other Parties. We all have work to do now to focus on being more specific and transparent about what the package – both negotiated and non-negotiated – will include, and how this package can credibly close the ambition gap that the upcoming NDC Synthesis Report is likely to expose.
This entails building where we can on the progress and movement made in Bonn – including the Brazilian Presidency’s approach to COP30, common ground found on streamlining the GGA indicators, and strong messaging around rights, equity, and participation from the Just Transition Work Programme – while taking much more seriously now the challenging dynamics around financing, commitment to the energy transition, and closing the ambition gap around the NDCs. The energy and dynamism shown during London Climate Action Week demonstrates the real-world transition is underway and is the smart play. If we are to see this positive momentum reflected at COP30, the Brazilian Presidency – with strong support from all Parties committed to the goals of Paris – will need to intensify diplomatic efforts between now and Belém, at both the ministerial and leader level.
To build the necessary momentum towards a clear and implementable set of outcomes in Belém, Leaders need to ensure that climate and the clean energy transition are core to domestic and global economic prosperity and security. Leaders must use key moments like the Africa Climate Summit, UNGA, the World Bank and IMF Annual meeting and the COP Leaders’ Summit to galvanise momentum, send clear signals of commitment and make progress to break the deadlock seen in Bonn. It is also critical that Parties engage with each other to understand concerns and perspectives, and work through divisions. Only then will COP30 provide the platform needed to build a safer, more resilient and prosperous future.
