By Sarah Grinnell ’26
Science & Environment Editor
When representatives walked out of the U.N.’s Bonn Climate Change Conference on Thursday, June 15, they left a sense of ambiguity hanging in the air. With roughly 200 countries represented, the Germany conference has been met with largely lukewarm reactions, as experts in the field have criticized the lack of clarity on major action items, Reuters reported.
According to Reuters, the Bonn conference is structured as a “mid-way check” for what issues will be on the agenda at the U.N.’s COP 28 climate summit, which will take place later this year in the United Arab Emirates. “The success of COP 28 hinges on progress achieved at this Bonn conference,” Madeleine Diouf Sarr, the chair of the developing countries conglomerate in Bonn, explained in a Guardian article. “We have to lay the foundations for a COP 28 decision that leads to the curbing of global emissions.”
However, according to the Guardian, the conference was rife with disagreement from the get-go, resulting in a two-hour delay due to dissent over the agenda. In fact, Carbon Brief reported that a final compromise was determined just one day before the meeting’s official end.
One cause of the delay was contention over fossil fuel phaseout and “the pace of carbon pollution cuts,” CNBC reported, as countries differed in their proposed approaches to implement and finance this goal.
According to the Guardian, another site of much frustration was the global stocktake, which analyzes how “far off track” various nations are in satisfying the pledges they made as part of the Paris Agreement. According to the United Nations Climate Change website states, the Paris Accords, which were adopted in 2015, refer to the international treaty made at COP 21 in Paris that committed to reduce the global rise of temperatures to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and limit levels to 1.5°C above those same levels.
Thus, rather than solidifying the agenda for COP 28, many professionals felt that the soft resolutions to these pressing issues left many unsatisfied, especially with the lack of headway on climate finance, the Guardian hinted. As summarized by David Waskow in a CNBC article, international climate director at the non-profit World Resources Institute, “Progress was underwhelming on nearly every front, with one main culprit: money.” The stagnation in compromise was largely due to this inability of the attending countries to put aside their own national and economic interests, CNBC reported.
According to the Guardian, progress on loss and damage suffered directly due to this roadblock. Loss and damage is the climate-based monetary aid provided by wealthier nations most responsible for the climate crisis to the lower-income countries that have experienced the brunt of its effects, the Guardian reported. Harjeet Singh, the head of global political strategy at Climate Action Network, said in a CNBC article that “the Bonn Climate Conference laid bare the glaring hypocrisy of wealthy nations, showcasing a remarkable indifference to the struggles of developing countries.” According to CNBC, “low-income countries were left deeply frustrated that funds pledged to them to implement their climate plans had not yet materialized.”
Given the U.N.’s notoriety for allowing major fossil fuel delegates and lobbyists to participate in its conferences, Sara Shaw, climate justice and energy coordinator at the environmental group Friends of the Earth International, predicted in a CNBC article that COP 28 will be a “huge fight” between these high- and low-income countries as a result.
Controversy also sprung up surrounding the host country for the conference this year, CNBC reported. According to Carbon Brief, the fact that UAE Sultan Al Jaber, who will serve as president of COP 28, is the head of one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world and president of a nation that is a major oil and gas producer has led many U.S. and European lawmakers to worry that his participation “risked undermining” the conference.
Still, that is not to say that all of the summit ended in gridlock, doom and dispute. According to the Guardian, Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, came to the talks with a call to action. While Stiell acknowledged that temperatures are on the road to passing the 1.5°C threshold within the next five years, he also stressed the importance of global collaboration as the world stands at this crucial “tipping point,” the Guardian reported.
According to the Guardian, although concerns of finance and national interest thwarted much of the talks, Stiell emphasized the need to instead “remember the best available science, which doesn’t arbitrate on who needs to do what or who is responsible for what.”
As Stiell said in an article for the Guardian and as was evident during the disputes, “there is at times tension between national interest and the global common good.” Regardless, Stiell urged delegates “to be brave, to see that by prioritizing the common good, you also serve your national interests.”
No matter the disagreements that abounded throughout the talks, Reuters reported that, in Stiell’s opinion, COP 28 is sure to be “the most significant [conference] on climate change since Paris,” and he hopes that Bonn can be the groundwork to finally get the world back “on track” to fulfilling the Paris Agreement’s goals.