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Executive summary | COP28 expectations with four months to go
Gaps at Bonn’s intersessional climate talks
The bumpy road from Bonn to Dubai
September will be the next critical milestone
- Climate negotiators met at their intersessional climate talks, known as SB58 (the 58th meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies), at Bonn, Germany, between 5-15 June.
- The deliberations were supposed to lay the foundations for progress to be made at COP28 in Dubai between 29 November – 12 December. Yet, they also highlighted the many gaps that still need to be bridged.
- The wrangling over the agenda (which also delayed the start of COP27 last year) repeated itself at Bonn. Whilst discussions continued regardless, it did affect what is considered “official” and what is labelled “informal” – all with reverberations on the speed and scale of progress.
- Parties and groupings stuck mostly to their familiar negotiating positions across most issues at Bonn.
- Historically, this has proven to be normal conduct for the intersessional climate talks, as heels are dug in for the year-end COP meeting. Some focused on all-inclusive mitigation (across all sectors, all greenhouse gases), some on finance (who provides what and when), and others on recalibrating how adaptation is interpreted.
- Whilst some faint contours of progress were established on core issues of (i) loss & damage; (ii) Article 6; and (iii) the just transition, which will form the basis of negotiations at COP28, these points (and others) could yet prove to be sticking points.
- With four months to go, a confluence of workshops and conferences to bridge the gaps across the most pertinent climate issues will continue in the lead up to COP28 in November.
- Generating “new, tangible and credible climate action” is the aim of the UN Climate Ambition Summit on 20 September – the next critical milestone to gauge the mood music for more progress.
- As ever, politics will determine whether there is enough determination to (re)galvanise ambition.
