Paving the way to COP 27: the Bonn Climate Change Conference
The meeting was the first time the international community has gathered since COP26 in Glasgow, where Parties committed to develop a work programme to speed up cuts in their emissions in this critical decade before 2030, with the aim of keeping global average temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
In Bonn, Parties also launched work on finding new ways to finance vulnerable countries and communities around the world that are struggling to “avert, minimize and address loss and damage” associated with the impacts of climate change. Work continued on defining a “new collective quantified goal” for climate finance, which will replace the current finance goal of USD 100 billion annually from 2020-2025.
Parties and representatives of civil society also used the meeting in Bonn to focus on the challenge of post-2030 ambition, by starting preparations for the Global Stocktake (GST) that will take place at COP28 in 2023 in the United Arab Emirates. The GST is designed to drive the Paris Agreement’s ambition cycle and will provide the basis for the next round of Parties’ emissions reduction targets for 2035 and 2040, as well as new efforts to adapt to the impacts of climate change and to raise financial and technical resources to support developing countries.
The Bonn session closed with the Parties agreeing to send forward a series of “informal notes” that will provide the basis for continued work between now and Sharm el-Sheikh. The most recent reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were at the centre of Bonn negotiations, delivering the best available scientific understanding of the urgent need and opportunities for action.
The EU worked closely with vulnerable developing countries and its G7 partners to encourage major emitters to raise their pre-2030 ambition through a new Mitigation Work Programme that should be launched in Sharm El-Sheikh.
On the issue of adaptation and on loss and damage, the EU and other developed countries recognise the urgency of the issue, and have committed to scale up support by strengthening existing arrangements and institutions that have demonstrated experience and expertise in supporting communities in need.
In terms of climate finance, developed countries must deliver on the commitments they have made. It is also essential to align global financial flows with the Paris goals to ensure that the scale of financial support matches what is required to help solve the existential challenges created by the climate crisis. Many other countries share this position, and the EU reaffirms that this must be addressed at COP 27.
In its closing statement, the EU welcomed the progress made over the ten days, and called on Parties to continue to build convergence on the various issues before meeting again in person in Sharm el-Sheikh for the UN Climate Conference (COP27) in November. The incoming Egyptian Presidency has the EU’s full support and we look forward to continued good cooperation.
This year’s conference was the first to take place in Bonn since the coronavirus outbreak. It also marked the last formal negotiating session under the leadership of Patricia Espinosa, who has served as Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC Secretariat since 2016.