The SB64 negotiations in Bonn concluded without reaching consensus on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA). According to a report published by the Climate Action Network (CAN), the group of developing countries, including the Africa Group of Nations, did not support the final draft decision due to the omission of a commitment to triple adaptation finance. The press release explains that this deadlock will push discussions on the issue to COP31 in Antalya, highlighting the ongoing tensions surrounding the design of implementation mechanisms and responsibilities for climate finance.

Read the full CAN press release here: Climate Action Network-International (CAN)

The debate over climate action has changed. The debate over who pays for it has not.

SB64 ended with a deadlock among Parties in the negotiations regarding the Global Goal on Adaptation. Many developing countries, and in particular the Africa Group of Nations, drew a line in the sand in the negotiations on Adaptation. Their line was crossed when they failed to get agreement from developed countries on the inclusion in the text of the tripling of Adaptation finance, promised at COP30 in Belém. The negotiations on the Global Goal on Adaptation will now have to start from scratch at the COP in Antalya. This outright rejection of the GGA text is a display of the built up frustrations by many developing countries about the complete lack of commitment and bad faith by developed countries to fulfil their legal obligation to provide climate finance. This was a feature that affected all negotiation rooms.

What was supposed to mark the transition from commitment to implementation in Bonn instead exposed a negotiation process that increasingly speaks the language of implementation while repeatedly retreating into procedure when implementation requires decisions.

At SB64, the language of climate justice was everywhere. Across two weeks of negotiations, governments repeatedly affirmed the importance of Adaptation, Just Transition, resilience and supporting communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Few openly challenged these priorities. The language of a people-centred transition has become mainstream.

Yet progress on the provision of real support continued to lag behind progress on process.

When discussions turned to the finance, governance arrangements and institutional decisions needed to make those commitments real, negotiations repeatedly drifted back towards reviews, technical processes, terms of reference and procedural debates.

The result was a conference in which implementation was universally endorsed but frequently deferred. From Adaptation and Just Transition to mitigation, the central political struggle was no longer over whether action is needed, but over who has the power and the resources to make implementation possible.

For millions of people already facing devastating floods, prolonged droughts, extreme heat, food insecurity and displacement, climate change is not a future risk but a present reality. Communities cannot adapt with promises alone. Workers cannot transition on declarations. Resilience cannot be built through reviews and technical discussions. The test at COP31 will be whether governments are prepared to match their words with the finance, support and political action needed to turn commitments into reality.

Jacobo Ocharan, Head of Political Strategies at CAN International, said: 

“Governments arrived in Bonn talking about implementation, but too often they killed time by talking about process. The debate over climate action has changed. The debate over who pays for it, governs it and delivers it has not. Across Adaptation, Just Transition, mitigation and finance, progress slowed whenever negotiations reached the decisions needed to turn commitments into reality. Communities facing climate impacts today do not need another review, another dialogue or another workshop about implementation. They need governments to deliver on what they have already promised.”

The rejection of the Global Goal on Adaptation text came down to the lack of commitment by developed countries to fulfil their legal obligation to not only provide, but triple finance for Adaptation, as agreed at COP30. Discussions throughout the Bonn session largely steered away from finance and means of implementation, focusing instead on technical processes and indicators and not the means to implement them.

Pooja Dave, Adaptation Policy Coordinator at CAN International, said: 

“What we saw in Bonn was clear bad faith and unwillingness by developed countries to make progress on the most important issue on Adaptation: the Global Goal on Adaptation. You cannot implement the GGA without finance. Yet continued attention was given to the technical processes, while progress on Adaptation finance remained limited. Developed countries largely focused discussions on the Technical Task Force, while developing countries stressed that all GGA mandates matter – including the commitment to triple Adaptation finance. For communities already living through floods, droughts and extreme heat, implementation is not about measuring Adaptation. It is about making it possible. Countries on the frontlines already know what they need to do. The question is whether they will receive the finance and support needed to do it.”

Unlike the Adaptation negotiations, Just Transition had a positive outcome. The negotiations produced a text outlining functions and modalities for a future Just Transition Mechanism. The emerging Belém-to-Antalya Mechanism (BAM) is intended to turn the political commitments agreed at COP30 into practical support for workers, communities and countries navigating the transition. The text represents an important step towards operationalising that vision. However, key questions around governance, accountability, participation and implementation support remain unresolved. Civil society organisations repeatedly warned against allowing procedural debates and reviews to crowd out the substantive work needed to build a mechanism capable of identifying implementation gaps, mobilising support and helping deliver just transitions on the ground.

Anabella Rosemberg, Senior Advisor on Just Transition at CAN International, said: 

“The Belém-to-Antalya Mechanism for Just Transition (BAM) is now within reach. Bonn was often slow and frustrating, but it produced the foundations for a meaningful outcome at COP31. The next three months will determine whether governments build a mechanism that supports workers, communities and countries through the transition, or settle for another space for dialogue. BAM must help identify implementation gaps, mobilise support and strengthen cooperation on just transition. CAN and its allies will continue pushing for a mechanism that moves beyond discussion and helps make just transition a reality.”

Finance remained the unresolved political question beneath almost every negotiation at SB64. Whether the issue was adaptation, Just Transition, mitigation or loss and damage, developing countries repeatedly stressed that implementation depends on finance, technology transfer and capacity-building reaching the countries and communities expected to deliver climate action. Yet most developed countries remain unwilling to commit the scale of public, grant-based finance needed to match their rhetoric on implementation. Looking away does not make the need disappear. It simply leaves vulnerable countries and communities to carry the burden and the costs, including paying the price with lives lost.

The transition away from fossil fuels remained another test of whether governments are prepared to move from agreement to implementation. While Parties continue to endorse the commitment agreed at COP28, Bonn offered limited clarity on how the transition is being delivered in practice, particularly for developing countries that want to accelerate the shift but with no real support to do this.

Mitigation negotiations reflected the same pattern. While Parties increasingly embraced the language of implementation, discussions continued to avoid the harder questions of ambition, support and how to close the emissions gap at the speed required by science. The risk is that implementation becomes another agenda item to discuss rather than a mandate to deliver.

As governments now turn towards COP31 in Antalya, the challenge is no longer defining the purpose of climate action. The science is clear, and what we need now is the strengthening of the IPCC, the backbone of the UNFCCC process, especially as it brings in more scientific voices from the Global South, as well as local and Indigenous knowledge systems. There is broad agreement, grounded in science and lived reality, that climate action must protect people, strengthen resilience, advance equity and support a Just Transition. The question is whether governments are prepared to move beyond process and take the decisions needed to deliver it.

Read the full article here, including additional comments from representatives of the Climate Action Network: Climate Action Network-International (CAN)