For those in the multilateral climate space, next week marks a key milestone in 2025’s calendar when negotiators assemble in Bonn for the first official UNFCCC negotiations of the year. It will also be an important test for Brazil’s COP30 Presidency vision around turning from pledges to action and demonstrating concrete progress and delivery. Tangible progress at the Bonn Intersessional climate meetings (SBs) will be essential to advance on several items up for negotiation, while also demonstrating the right commitment and political focus to drive momentum on the road to Belém.
The SBs, taking place 16-26 June, will be the only formal negotiation time ahead of COP, when all 197 Parties to the Paris Agreement come together. Particularly this year, with multilateralism under strain as geopolitical headwinds, a deepening fragmentation of the international order and growing backlash against climate action in many countries pose great challenges to progress, the SBs will be a critical inflection point. Big headline grabbing outcomes are not expected from Bonn, but tangible progress can nonetheless be made on important negotiation items. At the same time, it is essential to begin shaping a positive political and public narrative. As the Paris Agreement marks its tenth anniversary, COP30 must lay out a clear vision for the next decade of delivery. The tone and substance emerging from Bonn will be crucial in influencing the level of ambition and commitment that Parties bring to Belém.
Through a series of letters (1, 2, 3), the COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago has laid out a broad vision for COP30, including for SBs. At the centre of this vision is a call to foster a constructive negotiating environment and overcome divisions that marred COP29. A “Day Zero” Heads of Delegation session will be held to support this. It is imperative that Parties shoulder the responsibility of a successful outcome at COP30 and come to Bonn ready to reset the tone of negotiations, enabling early convergence on priority agendas.
Brazil has presented plans to tackle some of the challenging and unresolved items from COP29 including (i) the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) indicators under the UAE–Belém Work Programme, (ii) the UAE Dialogue on implementing the Global Stocktake (GST) outcomes, and (iii) the UAE Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP). These are all critical issues in a year when political attention is and must continue to focus on adaptation given the rising costs of inaction, when the world must shift decisively to delivering its climate commitments and, as COP30 CEO Ana Toni stated, we must use the Dubai Global Stocktake decision as a compass to guide implementation – including the commitments made to triple renewables, double energy efficiency and transition away from fossil fuels. 2025 is also the deadline for countries to submit updated national climate action plans (NDCs). With the NDC Synthesis Report due ahead of COP, Parties must use the SBs to formulate a plan on how to address the “ambition gap” so that the current round of NDCs represent a floor, not a ceiling, on mitigation ambition. Presenting ambitious NDCs ahead of the UN General Assembly in September will be essential to collating progress at COP30.
The June meetings are a unique opportunity to demonstrate multilateralism continues to function, while also connecting the UNFCCC process to real-world outcomes that improve people’s lives. The SB meetings can send a signal that the broader COP30 package is beginning to take shape—one that Parties, businesses, subnational actors, and civil society can collectively support and rally around.
The science is clear: to limit warming to 1.5°C, global emissions must peak before 2025 and fall sharply thereafter. The SBs can play a crucial role in keeping this goal within reach by advancing implementation of the Global Stocktake outcomes—specifically on tripling renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency, and transitioning away from fossil fuels. It must also connect formal negotiations to real-world action.
At COP29 there were significant divisions in perspectives on scope, direction and mandate of both UAE Dialogue and Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP). This impasse was further complicated by disagreements over the integration of the Global Stocktake outcomes and references to fossil fuel phase-out. It is critical that a positive dynamic in negotiations is built in Bonn to set the stage for a formal outcome at COP30.
Leadership from the Global North and Global South must come together to support these efforts. Steps must also be taken to strengthen coherence between the Global Mutirão, the Action Agenda and the negotiations. Aligning these processes can empower non-state actors and unlock the systemic transformation required in the energy sector—particularly if paired with clear signals on finance and support.
At SBs, Parties should support proposals for a GST follow-up mechanism to track and assess fossil fuel transition efforts. This will be essential to raise ambition ahead of COP30 and ensure the UAE Consensus translates into credible, economy-wide energy transition plans.
With the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience due to be finalised this year, Bonn must deliver momentum and clarity on the path forward. Parties will focus on refining the consolidated list of GGA indicators—ensuring they are politically balanced, technically robust, and link clearly to reporting structures, finance mechanisms, and the Global Stocktake. These indicators are central to tracking progress and turning the UAE Framework into a driver of real-world resilience. Consideration should also be given to governance structures that will take these indicators forward, such as climate councils’ work on monitoring and evaluation adaptation progress.
Parties will also begin shaping the Baku Adaptation Roadmap (BAR), established at COP29, to guide work beyond Belém. Recognising local and subnational adaptation efforts within the BAR, alongside agreeing on a new, ambitious adaptation finance goal will be key to unlocking implementation.
This technical progress must go hand in hand with political elevation. With strong signals from the Brazilian COP30 Presidency and High-Level Champions, SB62 must lay the groundwork for elevating adaptation to become a top-tier political priority on the road to COP30 and beyond, including to build global commitment to adaptation finance and initiatives that drive tangible results for communities on the frontlines of climate impacts and ensure resilience is not sidelined but central to global climate efforts.
It’s important that Parties add momentum behind the mobilisation of finance to instil confidence and credibility in the Baku-Belem Roadmap and to ensure a home for it in the COP30 decision text so that it has a future beyond 2025. Given recent ODA cuts amongst donor countries, public signals on the margins of SBs that new and existing donors remain committed to providing public climate finance and that private sector actors will be included at COP30 and pushed to demonstrate a commitment to global net zero investment pathways will also be crucial.
To achieve $1.3 trillion by 2035, Parties will also need to look beyond traditional finance tools and encompass wider policy areas with repercussions for climate finance mobilisation. Investment treaties are one example and reforming investment treaties could remove barriers that distort investment decisions and divert public resources from climate action.
Delivering on Article 2.1(c) will be a core outcome for COP30, and SB62 must lay the groundwork. Discussions in Bonn should emphasise systemic reform without placing additional burdens on developing countries—by increasing the volume and quality of finance, shifting subsidies, and incentivising investment in low-emission, climate-resilient development. This includes anchoring talks on investment treaty reform, transition plans, and a fairer financial architecture that channels capital to the Global South.
Brazil has pledged to explore multilateral reforms that match the urgency of the climate crisis. It is critical that any reforms reflect the current geopolitical reality and close the gap between pledges and action as we move to the implementation era. The SBs can help show how strengthening climate governance is at the heart of effective implementation of climate commitments.
Agenda discussions in Bonn will focus on increasing efficiency in the UNFCCC process, including streamlining agendas, the UNFCCC decision-making rules and enhancing observer participation. But the SBs can usefully kickstart a dialogue on the wider and more substantial reforms needed to ensure the multilateral regime remains fit for purpose, in order to make tangible progress before November.
In addition to the multilateral reforms, stronger governance is needed at the domestic level. Climate councils offer an effective solution, alongside climate framework laws and effective cross-governmental coordination. The International Climate Councils Network supports and amplifies the work of a growing network of climate councils: 25 expert bodies officially mandated to advise their governments on climate policy. During Bonn, discussions will be had on how to strengthen existing governance structures or set up climate councils in regions where there are gaps, such as Latin America, Asia and Africa.
The “to do list” for the SBs is consequential. Countries must show they are able to come together around key topics such as adaptation, energy and finance, but just as importantly they must demonstrate alongside other actors sustained and political commitment to climate cooperation, to drive more specific and concrete outcomes the world deserves at Belem.
To do so, commitment from progressive countries can, and must, be leveraged. Together, the outgoing Azerbaijan Presidency and the incoming Brazilian Presidency must ensure the technical negotiations create the political momentum needed and set the stage for the strongest possible COP30 outcome which protects and propels the Paris Agreement, recommits the world to climate action and reinvigorates multilateralism.
