In a new study quantifying how gender shapes people’s experiences of climate change, scientists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) found that, by 2050, higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns could mean women globally spend up to 30% more time collecting water.

PIK guest researcher Robert Carr, the study’s lead author, explained how this results in more physical strain, psychological distress and lost time that could otherwise be spent on education, leisure or employment.

“Even when people talk about gendered climate impacts, there is very little attention on time poverty and how that affects someone’s ability to improve their life,” Carr told Climate Home.

In addition, the cost of lost working time for women affects economies, and is projected to reach tens to hundreds of millions of US dollars per country annually by 2050, the study said.

Is water provision in drought-hit Zambia climate ‘loss and damage’ or adaptation?

Carr noted that the data underpinning PIK’s study only recently became available and is a valuable tool for connecting women’s welfare issues to climate impacts, with more such analysis expected as new datasets emerge.

“But more still needs to be done to act on, and implement, research findings like ours at the local and national levels,” he added.

For that to happen, research like PIK’s has to resonate in government offices and negotiating rooms at UN climate talks, where gender activists see 2024 as a milestone year. Countries are expected to renew key global initiatives for advancing gender-responsive climate action and improving gender balance in official delegations at UN negotiations.

Gendered impacts of climate change

So far progress has been slow. After more than a decade of working towards those aims within the UN climate process, wilder weather and rising seas are still disproportionately affecting women and gender-diverse people, as global warming continues apace.

For example, female-headed rural households experience higher income losses due to extreme weather events like floods and droughts, through impacts on farming and other activities.

Rates of child marriage and violence against women and girls have been shown to increase during and after climate disasters. And studies have identified a positive correlation between drought-induced displacement and hysterectomies among female farm labourers in India.

At the same time, barriers like caring responsibilities, lack of funding, difficulties in obtaining visas and even sexual harassment in UN spaces persist, standing in the way of women’s equal participation in the climate negotiating rooms.

Yet, despite the mounting urgency, governments made little progress in talks on gender issues at the mid-year UN conference in Bonn this month.

Delegates arrive for a workshop on implementing the UNFCCC gender action plan and on future work to be undertaken on gender and climate change, at the Bonn Climate Conference on June 3, 2024. (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth)

Advocates had hoped to leave the German city with a new, stronger version of the UN’s flagship gender initiative, known as the Lima Work Programme on Gender (LWP). Instead, discussions were tense and slow, leaving the LWP – which is supposed to be renewed by 2025 – to be finalised in November at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan.

No rise in women negotiators

Claudia Rubio, gender working group lead for the Women and Gender Constituency at the UN, said the LWP has enabled a better understanding of “what is prohibiting women and other genders from being in [UN negotiating] spaces”.

But Mwanahamisi Singano, senior global policy lead at the Women’s Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO), reminded delegates at a workshop in Bonn that “time has not been the magic ingredient in bridging disparities between women and men in participation”, which has “stagnated or even declined when it comes to COPs”.

According to data from WEDO, women made up only 34% of COP28 government delegations overall, the same percentage as 10 years ago. Azerbaijan’s initial men-only COP29 organising committee – to which women were hastily added after an international outcry – and its line-up of negotiators at Bonn were a case in point.

The UN’s own analysis of men and women’s relative speaking times at the negotiations shows that women often – though not always – speak less, and that themes such as technology and finance see consistently lower numbers for women’s participation.

Progress has been gradual even with programmes like WEDO’s Women Delegates Fund, which has financed hundreds of women – primarily from least developed countries and small island developing states – to attend UN climate talks. Since 2012, WEDO has also run ‘Night Schools’, training women in technical language and negotiation skills.

Gender in the NDCs

Increasing the gender diversity of decision-makers in UN negotiations is important in its own right, but it does not necessarily translate into more gender-responsive climate policy, experts said. Not all women negotiators are knowledgeable about the gender-climate nexus, they noted.

But having an international framework to boost gender-sensitive climate action has also “catalysed political will” at the country level, according to Rebecca Heuvelmans, advocacy and campaigning officer at Women Engage for a Common Future (WECF).

Delegates listen to discussions on the UNFCCC Gender Action Plan at the Bonn Climate Conference on June 4, 2024. (Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth)

This is evidenced by an increase in the number of official National Gender and Climate Change Focal Points – up from 38 in 2017 when UN climate talks first adopted a Gender Action Plan, to 140 across 110 countries today. While the precise role of these focal points depends on country needs, advocates say they have been pivotal in spurring action on national gender priorities.

So far, at least 23 countries have national gender and climate change action plans, and references to gender in national climate plans submitted to the UN, known as NDCs, have increased since the earliest commitments in 2016. Around four-fifths now include gender-related information, according to a UN review of the plans.

In practice, this ranges from including gender-diverse people in the development of national climate plans to legislation that specifically addresses the intersection of climate change and gender.

For example, nine countries – including Sierra Leone and Jordan – have committed to addressing rising gender-based violence in the context of climate change. South Sudan acknowledged that heat exposure and malnutrition can increase infant and maternal mortality, while Côte d’Ivoire recognised that climate change hikes risks to pregnant women and those going through menopause.

Nonetheless, only a third of countries include access to sexual, maternal and newborn health services in their climate commitments, according to a 2023 report by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and Queen Mary University of London, showing how much work is yet to be done.

Next year, countries are due to submit updated NDCs, which campaigners see as a crucial opportunity to embed gender equality more deeply, including by involving women and girls in their planning and implementation, and collecting data disaggregated by sex and gender that can help shape policy.

Cross-cutting issue

Ahead of COP29, gender advocates are pushing for a stronger work programme with new language around intersectionality – the recognition that gender interacts with other parts of identity like race, class and Indigeneity to create overlapping systems of discrimination.

Angela Baschieri, technical lead on climate action at UNFPA, said gender commitments in the UN climate process must be more ambitious and include actionable targets for countries to address gender inequality.

Five things we learned from the UN’s climate mega-poll

Beyond the gender negotiations themselves, the Women and Gender Constituency wants to boost the integration of gender with other streams of work.

“Whether you’re talking about green hydrogen, climate finance or low-carbon transport, there is always a gender dimension,” said Sascha Gabizon, executive director of WECF International, a network of feminist groups campaigning on environmental issues.

“We have so much evidence now that climate policies just aren’t as efficient if they are not gender-transformative,” she added.

(Reporting by Daisy Clague; editing by Megan Rowling)

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In a letter to German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, seen by Climate Home but not made public, several coalitions of climate activists say that visa barriers exclude many participants from the Global South from the “climate negotiations that will determine the future of their countries and communities”.

Ugandan campaigner Hamira Kobusingye from Fridays for Future Africa, one of those behind the letter, told Climate Home: “This is an example of systemic and climate racism, as most of the affected delegations were primarily from Africa and Asia. This issue is rooted in the lingering effects of colonialism.”

Government negotiators also sounded the alarm, collectively agreeing in formal conclusions at the talks that they “noted with concern the difficulties experienced by some delegates in obtaining visas to enable them to attend sessions” in Bonn and urging “timely issuance of visas”.

Bonn talks on climate finance goal end in stalemate on numbers

Delegates from Europe and most of the Americas do not need visas for short stays in Germany while those from Africa and most of Asia do.

The German Federal Foreign Office told Climate Home it was “important” to them that all accredited UN conference participants were able to attend.

A spokesperson said they were “in close contact with the UNFCCC Secretariat months before the conference, including on the visa issue, and sensitised the missions abroad at an early stage to the upcoming conference and the potential increase in demand for visas”.

They added that UN accreditation for the Bonn talks “cannot replace the actual examination of the visa application” and there are legal requirements for getting a visa for the EU’s Schengen zone of free movement.

Climate Home has seen seven letters issued by the German government denying visas to African campaigners and negotiators. One other rejection letter was issued on Germany’s behalf by another European Union government, as some EU countries share responsibility for issuing visas in certain nations.

The letters say that the visas were not issued because the delegates had not proved they had the funds to cover their stay or that they planned to leave before their visa expired or that the information or documents provided were not reliable.

Not welcome?

The organisers of the letter to the German government said they have found seven other cases where delegates only had their visas approved after the start of the two weeks of talks, meaning many had to rebook flights.

Bonn makes only lukewarm progress to tackle a red-hot climate crisis

Others reported being unable to get an appointment with visa officials of the German embassy in their country.

One delegate from an African country, who did not want to be named, told Climate Home that they went to the German consulate three times before they received information on how to get a visa.

They were told they weren’t going to get a visa appointment in time and only received one after getting contacts in their own government to help. “Not everyone has those advantages though, so I was pretty lucky”, the delegate said.

Proscovier Nnanyonjo Vikman from Climate Action Network Uganda said she only received her visa five days after the start of the talks and had to change her flight. She said many delegates feel “they are being harassed to enter a country that obviously doesn’t like them”.

No shortage of public money to pay for a just energy transition

As well as limiting access, the visa issues delayed the talks. In the opening session, the Russian government blocked the adoption of the agenda because, they said, several of their negotiators had not received visas. They relented after receiving assurances the visas would be granted quickly.

The German government spokesperson told Climate Home that the foreign office liaises closely with the UNFCCC to find solutions for “queries or discrepancies” including “for visa applications submitted too late during the conference”.

Call to move mid-year talks

Similar issues have plagued previous European climate summits. In 2022, two campaigners from Sierra Leone were left stranded in Nigeria after the Swedish government sent their passports to be processed in Kenya as they applied, unsuccessfully, for visas to attend the Stockholm+50 environment summit.

The UN talks are held in Bonn every June as it is the home of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), whose secretariat organises the meeting and is permanently based in a riverside tower a short walk from the conference centre.

The mid-year conference is supposed to help negotiators discuss issues in advance of the COP climate summit, a more high-profile event held every November, and to share experiences on how to tackle climate change.

Vikman, who went to Bonn to promote methods of adapting farming to the effects of climate change, said that the talks should be moved from Germany to a place everyone can access.

“We don’t need to die coming to Bonn – let’s move, she said.

Developing countries suggest rich nations tax arms, fashion and tech firms for climate

Kobusingye echoed her call. “It is crucial to remember that the role of the UN is to unite nations. If Global North countries cannot facilitate this process, Germany and the UN should consider moving the conference to a more receptive country that is visa-free for delegates from the Global South,” she said.

She contrasted the German government’s hosting with the UAE’s arrangements for COP28 last November and December when, she said, “every accredited delegate received their visa promptly, demonstrating that it is possible to accommodate all participants efficiently”.

(Reporting by Joe Lo; editing by Megan Rowling)

This story was updated on June 14 to add comment from the German government received after publication.

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In the closing session of the two-week talks on Thursday evening, many countries expressed their disappointment and frustration at the lack of any outcome on the Mitigation Ambition and Implementation Work Programme (MWP), noting the urgency of stepping up efforts to curb greenhouse gas pollution this decade.

The co-chairs of the talks said those discussions had not reached any conclusion and would need to resume at the annual climate summit in Azerbaijan in November, unleashing a stream of disgruntled interventions from both developed and developing countries.

Samoa’s lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen, speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), emphasised that “we really can’t afford these failures”. “We have failed to show the world that we are responding with the purpose and urgency required to limit warming to 1.5 degrees,” she said.

Anne Rasmussen of Samoa, speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth

Governments, from Latin America to Africa and Europe, lamented the lack of progress on the MWP because of its central role in keeping warming to the 1.5C temperature ceiling enshrined in the Paris Agreement.

Current policies to cut emissions are forecast to lead to warming of 2.7C, even as the world is already struggling with worsening floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels at global average temperatures around 1.3C higher than pre-industrial times.

Mitigation a taboo topic?

Despite the clear need to act fast, a deep sense of mistrust seeped into talks on the MWP in Bonn, with negotiators disagreeing fundamentally over its direction, according to sources in the room.

Developed countries and some developing ones said that the Like-Minded Group of Developing Countries (LMDCs), led primarily by Saudi Arabia and China, as well as some members of the African Group, had refused to engage constructively in the discussions.

“The reason is that they fear this would put pressure on them to keep moving away from fossil fuels,” an EU delegate told Climate Home.

Bonn bulletin: Fossil fuel transition left homeless

Bolivia’s Diego Pacheco, speaking on behalf of the LMDCs, rejected that view in the final plenary session, while describing the atmosphere in the MWP talks as “strange and shocking”. He also accused developed countries of trying to bury data showing their emissions will rise rather than fall over the course of this decade.

The EU and Switzerland said it was incomprehensible that a body charged with cutting greenhouse gas emissions had not even been allowed to discuss them.

“Mitigation must not be taboo as a topic,” said Switzerland’s negotiator, adding that otherwise the outcome and credibility of the COP29 summit would be at risk.

Rows over process

Before MWP negotiations broke down in Bonn, its co-facilitators – Kay Harrison of New Zealand and Carlos Fuller of Belize – had made a last-ditch attempt to rescue some semblance of progress.

They produced draft conclusions calling for new inputs ahead of COP29 and an informal note summarising the diverging views aired during the fraught exchanges. For many delegates, the adoption of those documents would have provided a springboard for more meaningful discussions in Baku.

But the LMDC and Arab groups refused to consider this, arguing that the co-facilitators had no mandate to produce them and calling their legitimacy into question – a claim rebutted by the UN climate secretariat, according to observers. Frantic efforts to find common ground ultimately came to nothing.

A session of the Mitigation Work Programme in Bonn. Photo: IISD/ENB – Kiara Worth

Fernanda de Carvalho, climate and energy policy head for green group WWF, said the MWP discussions must advance if the world is to collectively reduce emissions by 43% by 2030 and 60% by 2035 from 2019 levels, as scientists say is needed.

The MWP should be focused on supporting countries to deliver stronger national climate action plans (NDCs) – due by early next year – that set targets through to 2035, she said.

“Instead, we saw [government] Parties diverging way more than converging on hard discussions that never made it beyond process,” she added.

‘Collective amnesia’

Some developing countries, including the Africa Group, pushed back against what they saw as efforts by rich nations to force them to make bigger cuts in emissions while ducking their own responsibilities to move first and provide more finance to help poorer countries adopt clean energy.

Brazil – which will host the COP30 summit in 2025 – said the MWP was the main channel for the talks to be able to find solutions to put into practice the agreement struck at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a fair way.

But to enable that, “we have to create a safe environment of trust that will leverage it as a cooperative laboratory”, he said, instead of the “courthouse” it has become “where we accuse and judge each other”.

Observers in Bonn pointed to the absence of discussions on implementing the COP28 deal on fossil fuels, which was hailed last December as “historic”.

“It seems like we have collective amnesia,” veteran watcher Alden Meyer, a senior associate at think-tank E3G, told journalists. “We’ve forgotten that we made that agreement. It’s taboo to talk about it in these halls.”

‘Detour on the road to Baku’

After the exchange of views, UN Climate Change executive secretary Simon Stiell noted that the Bonn talks had taken “modest steps forward” on issues like the global goal on adaptation, increased transparency of climate action and fixing the rules for a new global carbon market.

“But we took a detour on the road to Baku. Too many issues were left unresolved. Too many items are still on the table,” he added.

The closing plenary of the Bonn Climate Change Conference. Photo: Lucia Vasquez / UNFCCC

Another key area where the talks failed to make much progress was on producing clear options for ministers to negotiate a new post-2025 climate finance goal, as developed countries refused to discuss dollar amounts as demanded by the Africa and Arab groups, among others.

Bonn talks on climate finance goal end in stalemate on numbers

Developing nations also complained about this in the final session, while others expressed their concern that a separate track of the negotiations on scientific research had failed to address the topic in a rigorous enough manner.

In his closing speech, Stiell reminded countries that “we must uphold the science”, and urged them to accelerate their efforts to find common ground on key issues well ahead of COP29.

The next opportunities to move forward on the new finance goal – expected as the main outcome from the Baku summit – will be a “retreat” of heads of delegations in July followed by a technical meeting in October, including a high-level ministerial dialogue on the issue.

But several observers told Climate Home that highly contentious issues – such as the size of the funding pot and the list of donors – are beyond the remit of negotiators and are unlikely to be resolved until the political heavyweights, including ministers, take them up in Azerbaijan in November.

Rising costs of climate crisis

“Business-as-usual is a recipe for failure, on climate finance, and on many other fronts, in humanity’s climate fight,” Stiell said. “We can’t keep pushing this year’s issues off into the next year. The costs of the climate crisis – for every nation’s people and economy – are only getting worse.”

Mohamed Adow, director of Kenya-based energy and climate think-tank Power Shift Africa, warned that “multiple factors are setting us up for a terrible shock at COP29″, saying this “ticking disaster threatens to undermine” the NDCs and in turn the 1.5C warming limit.

North Africa’s disappearing nomads: Why my community needs climate finance

In comments posted on X, formerly Twitter, Adow called for justice for those dying from the impacts of climate change such as extreme heat in India and Sudan in recent days, arguing that climate finance remains “a vital part in securing a safe and secure future for us all”.

But, he said, Bonn did not deliver a beacon of hope for vulnerable people. “Developing countries are expected to slay the climate dragon with invisible swords, having gotten zero assurances on the long-term finance they need,” he added.

(Reporting by Megan Rowling and Matteo Civillini, editing by Joe Lo)

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A few weeks ago, leaders of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) met in Antigua & Barbuda to discuss our next decade of action. This, for us, is the critical decade, no less. We have a few years to change the tides that are swallowing our islands and extinguishing our culture and our identity.  

Pacific Island communities are unwilling witnesses of the climate crisis – emitting minuscule amounts of greenhouse gases while bearing the brunt of the extreme and devastating consequences of the world’s failure to break its addiction to fossil fuels.  

During that meeting, we heard from some G7 leaders that they will support our priorities, that a fossil fuel phase-out and a just and equitable transition is necessary. But these cannot be hollow words. As the single greatest security threat for our region, it is time to implement your commitments or be held accountable for your lack of inaction by carrying the loss of our future generations on your shoulders. 

Just a few months ago, at the UN climate talks in Dubai, countries around the world finally agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. This week in Bonn, any talk of how countries plan to implement this agreement was noticeably absent.

Bonn bulletin: Fossil fuel transition left homeless

But now, G7 nations – Canada, Japan, Italy, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France – are gathering at a historic time for climate politics, holding one of the first opportunities to show their leadership by putting the COP28 decision on fossil fuels into action. 

This will also be the last time these countries meet before they are required to submit updated and enhanced climate plans through to 2035 under the Paris Agreement. It is a final chance for G7 nations to adopt the measures that are necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C. 

Despite having both the capacity and the responsibility to be leaders driving forward a full, fast, fair and funded phase-out of fossil fuels, these countries are not walking the walk – at home or abroad.

Islands as “collateral damage”?

Some G7 countries have plans to massively expand fossil fuel production at home despite science telling us that no new oil, gas, or coal projects are compatible with a safe climate, while others are using billions of the public’s money to finance more fossil fuel infrastructure abroad. 

We are urging G7 nations to demonstrate true leadership at the upcoming negotiations, immediately halting the approval of all new fossil fuel projects and committing to 1.5°C-aligned timelines for phasing out existing fossil fuel reliance in a just and equitable manner.  

This transition must prioritise the needs of developing countries, which bear the brunt of climate change impacts despite contributing the least to its causes. 

G7 coal charade: Funding the fire they claim to fight

G7 countries have already committed to end international public finance for fossil fuel projects but continue approving billions of dollars for fossil fuel infrastructure. They are giving the fossil fuel industry a lifeline, indebting vulnerable countries, and delaying a just energy transition.  

In the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres: “The idea that an entire island state could become collateral damage for profiteering by the fossil fuel industry is simply obscene.” 

There is no shortage of public money to enable a just and equitable transition to renewable energy and turn the COP28 agreement into a reality. It is just poorly distributed to the most harmful parts of the global economy that are driving climate change and inequality: fossil fuels, unfair colonial debts, and the super-rich. 

We need G7 countries to pay their fair share on fair terms for fossil fuel phase-out and the other crises we face. Climate finance remains the critical enabler of action – over the course of our meetings in Antigua & Barbuda we heard some G7 countries make commitments and pledges; we also heard a lot of solutions and options that will exacerbate our debt burden.  

But for us, it is clear. Climate finance must be scaled up to meet the trillions of dollars needed for adaptation, mitigation, and addressing loss and damage; and sent to where it is most needed – on fair terms that do not further burden our economies with debt. 

Hold fossil fuel firms to account

The members of the G7 are among the world’s most powerful and wealthiest nations. They have a responsibility to lead the way both at home and abroad. Anything less is hypocrisy and gross negligence, and risks endangering the implementation of the COP28 decision to transition away from fossil fuels. 

The Pacific Island nations have been vocal advocates for ambitious climate action and have led by example for decades. In 2023, our leaders aspired to a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific. We embedded the language of phase-out and transition in our leaders’ declaration.   

Bonn talks on climate finance goal end in stalemate on numbers

We have felt the impacts of climate change more acutely than most and have consistently called for comprehensive and equitable global action for the very survival of our nations and for the good of all people and species.  

For Pacific Island nations, the transition to clean and renewable energy is not just a goal but a necessity for survival. We call upon the G7 to reflect the highest possible ambition. These countries must acknowledge and support our aspiration for a fossil fuel-free future, setting an example for sustainable development that prioritizes the well-being of people and planet over profit – and ensure that the fossil fuel companies responsible for the climate crisis bear the cost of their actions. 

The time for action is now. The fate of our planet hangs in the balance, and the decisions made by the G7 nations will shape our collective future. We implore them to heed the call of the Pacific Island nations and rise to the challenge of the climate crisis with boldness, ambition and urgency. Our shared future depends on it. 

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The post Bonn bulletin: Climate finance chasm remains unbridged appeared first on Climate Home News.

Thousands of country representatives have spent the last two weeks in Germany at the UN Bonn Climate Conference, marking the mid-year point to the biggest climate summit of the year: COP29. 

But despite being a core milestone each year for global climate discussions, there is troublingly little to show for it. And with less than six months before COP29 – and after years of negotiations – there has been a shameful lack of commitment on delivering for those on the frontline of the climate crisis.   

Climate finance and adaptation play imperative roles in ensuring communities are able to thrive in the face of unpredictable and unforgiving weather patterns. And while both topics have been heavy on the Bonn agenda, finance negotiations so far have failed to really consider those living with climate uncertainty right now. 

Want climate news from the Bonn talks in your inbox? Sign up for free to get our weekly newsletter and occasional extra bulletins

WaterAid has been on the ground at the Bonn talks, calling for robust water, sanitation and hygiene indicators to flow directly through key climate adaptation frameworks, especially the Global Goal on Adaptation and the Loss and Damage Fund – both of which will change the course of the future for those living on the frontlines of the climate crisis. 

Support lacking for those on the frontline

Yet countries at Bonn have hit a roadblock on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA), with discussions struggling to go beyond a shared acknowledgement of the value of including the support of experts to progress on areas of concern. Progress on GGA targets remains stagnant as parties grapple over country-specific concerns instead of coming to a collective outcome, with less than two days left of the conference. 

Meanwhile, the most recent talks on the Loss and Damage Fund failed to consider the urgency of the escalating climate crisis at hand and the scale of financing needed to ensure frontline nations can recover and rebuild from impacts of climate change. 

North Africa’s disappearing nomads: Why my community needs climate finance

The new collective quantified goal on climate finance (NCQG) – a new and larger target that is expected to replace the current $100bn climate finance goal – is also high on the Bonn agenda. Many core elements of this new climate fund goal are yet to be agreed.

WaterAid is calling for the NCQG to have sub-goals for adaptation and loss and damage, as well as for the finance pot to have a direct channel to vulnerable communities so they can be involved in ensuring the funds go to where the support is most needed.  

Too much or too little water

Whilst conversations at Bonn have been lukewarm, the climate crisis has remained red hot. Right now, countries around the world are watching it unfold in real time. From flooding and cyclones to drought and deadly heatwaves, communities are dealing with the terrifying reality of living with too much or too little water.  

Southern Asia is being exposed in particular to a dangerous and chaotic cocktail of unpredictable weather, making life unbearable for those on the climate frontline. 

In late May, Cyclone Remal hit coastal parts of southern Bangladesh with gale speeds of up to 110km/h causing devastation across the country for 8.4 million people, leaving many without power, damaging crops and making tube wells and latrines unusable.  

Meanwhile, record temperatures were recorded in Bangladesh through April and May where temperatures soared above 43 degrees Celsius, scorching 80% of the country and leaving thousands without power. 

At the same time, Pakistan witnessed its wettest April since 1961, with the south-western province of Punjab experiencing a staggering 437 percent more rainfall than usual, fuelling the malnourishment of 1.5 million children and damaging 3,500 homes.  

Water infrastructure key to adaptation

Water, sanitation and hygiene equip communities like those across South Asia with the ability to adapt to climate change, protecting livelihoods and farms. These basic essentials ensure people are not subject to the spread of waterborne diseases while preventing families from being forced to migrate due to sea level rises.  

From flood defences to drought resistance, water also acts as a guiding light as to where donors should direct climate finance, ensuring long-term support reaches the people who need it most. Investment in water-related infrastructure in low and middle-income countries is expected to deliver at least $500 billion a year in economic value, protecting countless lives and boosting economic prosperity. 

Bonn talks on climate finance goal end in stalemate on numbers

Now is the time for global leaders to put pen to paper and set plans in motion to ensure that we see real progress on how we achieve the GGA targets at the grassroots and that the necessary level of climate funding reaches those who need it most, without further delay.  

This truly is a matter of life and death – and prioritising action on water, sanitation and hygiene across global adaptation goals may be our only hope to prevent climate change from washing away people’s futures.  

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Rich countries have a bill to pay. A study in the journal Nature says they will owe low- and middle-income countries an estimated $100 trillion-$200 trillion by 2050 since they have caused the climate crisis with their outsized emissions, while developing nations bear the brunt of the impacts. 

As negotiators gather in Bonn this week to prepare for November’s COP29 climate summit, wealthy governments have to face the music and pay their fair share of climate finance. With low-income countries struggling with rising seas and spiralling unjust debts, the stakes have never been higher. The good news? Rich countries can deliver the funds needed for climate action. What is lacking is the political will, as usual. But we can change this.

Bonn bulletin: Crunch time for climate finance

At last year’s COP negotiations, world leaders recognised for the first time that all countries must “transition away from fossil fuels” in energy systems. This year they must agree on a new climate finance goal for 2025, which will set a new benchmark for the quantity and terms of the money owed.

Year after year, wealthy countries have failed to pay up. While transitioning away from fossil fuels is technically possible and relatively low-cost, the failure to finance transformative climate solutions like 100% renewable-ready grids, energy access, and programs to support workers and community transitions is one of the key remaining obstacles to tackling the climate crisis. Meanwhile, the lack of funding to adapt and respond to climate impacts means fires, droughts and floods are already bringing devastating consequences.

As UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell has said, “A quantum leap this year in climate finance is both essential and entirely achievable.” But, as negotiations have begun to establish a new global climate finance target, wealthy countries are once again trying to shirk their responsibilities.

Loans and ‘private-sector first’

They have come to the table with only tiny amounts of money. Worse, they argue it should be delivered mostly as loans, investments and guarantees – which they profit from, while climate vulnerable ‘recipient’ countries rack up debt. The US, Canada, UK and their peers claim that there is not enough public money to do anything else. Yet we know they can come up with enormous sums, like for COVID stimulus plans and for bailing out the banks.

Wealthy countries say the private sector can cover most of the costs instead. This ‘private sector first’ approach is particularly emphasized for energy finance. The idea is that all that is needed is a bit of public finance to ‘de-risk’ energy investments and attract much greater sums of private finance.

But as a former World Bank Director has argued, this approach has consistently delivered far less money than promised and “has injustice and inequality built in,” while reducing the role of government action for creating the right market conditions to deliver profits to investors. We need much more public funding to be delivered as grants for a fair energy transition.

Developing countries suggest rich nations tax arms, fashion and tech firms for climate

Rather than relying on the private sector, rich countries can afford the grants and highly concessional finance required for a fast, fair and full phase-out of fossil fuels, which societies and communities want. There is no shortage of public money available to fund climate action at home and abroad. Rather, a lot of it is currently going to the wrong things, like dirty fossil fuels, wars and the super-rich.

The lack of progress is also a symptom of a larger global financial system where a handful of Global North governments and corporations have near-full control. This unjust architecture results in a net $2 trillion a year outflow from low-income countries to high-income countries, historic levels of inequality and food insecurity, and record profits for oil and gas companies.

Make polluters pay

To raise the funds, wealthy governments can start by cutting off the flow of public money to fossil fuels and making polluters pay. The science is clear that there is no room for any new investments in oil, gas or coal infrastructure if we want to secure a liveable planet. And yet governments continue to pour more fuel on the fire, using public money to fund continued fossil fuel expansion to the tune of $1.7 trillion in 2022. 

There is already momentum to stop a particularly influential form of fossil fuel support. At the COP26 global climate conference in Glasgow, 41 countries and institutions joined the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP). They pledged to end all direct international public finance for unabated fossil fuels by the end of 2022 and instead prioritise their international public finance for the clean energy transition.

Rich nations meet $100bn climate finance goal – two years late

With the passing of the end of the 2022 deadline, eight out of the sixteen CETP signatories with significant amounts of international energy finance have adopted policies that end fossil fuel support – and we see international fossil finance figures dropping by billions as a result.

Making fossil fuel companies pay for their pollution through a ‘windfall’ tax on fossil fuel companies in the richest countries could raise an estimated $900 billion by 2030. Alongside taxing windfall profits, a progressive tax on extreme wealth starting at 2% would raise $2.5 trillion to 3.6 trillion a year. Brazil currently has a proposal to tax the super-rich globally, which is gaining momentum at the G20. 

Canceling illegitimate debts in the Global South can free up even more.

The public money is there for a liveable future for all. As leaders negotiate on the next climate target, we must ensure those most responsible for the climate crisis finally pay up.

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Frontline communities around the world are shouldering the deleterious injustices of climate change, especially in Africa despite it emitting only around 4% of total global carbon emissions. 

A case in point is the nomadic Amazigh tribes in the southeastern reaches of Morocco. The Amazighs are the oldest known inhabitants of Northern Africa. Their ancestral lifestyle is threatened by climate change, manifest in consecutive years of drought, relentlessly eroding their rights, including access to water and education, and their heritage. 

The story is personal to me, as I am from this region, and these are my people. My father was a nomad but was forced to give up nomadic life and settle in a village due to drought in the early 1980s. 

Among our tribe, “we’ve gone from nearly 600 tents in 1961 to just a few dozen today”, my father declares. According to the national census, Morocco’s total nomadic population in 2014 stood at just 25,274, a 63% drop from 2004. 

“Great enabler of climate action” – UN urges Bonn progress on new finance goal

As pastoralists reliant on livestock, particularly sheep and goats, nomadic families depend on suitable pastures, but drought increasingly has rendered pastures and water sources barren. “This is the eighth consecutive year of drought, this situation is unprecedented,” a 91-year-old nomad told me. 

This is also a story of loss and damage to the nomads’ very culture and way of life. As someone familiar with the experience of displacement, I have witnessed how climate change strikes at the heart of our culture and identity. It’s not just about losing homes or livelihoods — it’s about losing the very essence of who we are.  

Each drought-induced exodus undermines our traditions, leaving us adrift in a world that seems less and less familiar.  

This is an existential crisis for my community. 

In search of water 

In Morocco, the frequency of droughts has increased fivefold, from one dry year in 15 between 1930-1990 to one dry year in three over the last two decades. Now, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts a doubling of drought frequency in North Africa to come.  

Water is being lost, and much is lost with it. As Moha Oufane, another nomad, said to me: “Water is everything. It’s the most important thing for us. We can buy food and feed livestock with what’s left in the mountains or by going into debt, but water can’t be bought. It’s priceless.”

Water shortages are disrupting traditional pastoral routes, forcing families to give up nomadism or put themselves at risk. In the past, the year would be structured around a well-defined nomadic pattern: summer months were devoted to Agdal-to-Imilchil, while winter months were spent on the Errachidia side, with a return to Assoul (a village in Tinghir) and the surrounding area when the cold set in.  

Today, this traditional route no longer exists. Nomads go where little water remains, to preserve their livelihoods and the lives of their livestock. 

Only one new water point exists on this traditional route, a project led by the Moroccan state. “This project is extremely beneficial for us,” Moha says. “Similar projects in other nearby areas would be of immense help to us.”

Loss and damage sub-goal

Many nomads are forced to go into debt to feed their livestock, their main source of income, which worsens their situation. According to Moha, some accumulated debts of nearly 30,000 dh ($3,000) between October 2023 and January 2024”. Debt has long been used by these communities, but this was when nomads were confident of being able to pay it back after good rainfall seasons, which is no longer the case. 

Conflicts over territory and diminishing water-dependent resources, once unthinkable, now disrupt the social cohesion and hospitality for which nomadic communities are renowned. 

The plight of Morocco’s nomads illustrates the need for international support for climate-affected communities. Rich historic-emitter countries must honour their obligations to provide climate finance under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  

Quality – not just quantity – matters in the new climate finance goal

Economic costs of loss and damage in developing countries are estimated to reach $290-580bn/year by 2030. Grant finance, not debt, must be provided for communities to repair and recover. Developing countries should not have to spend a penny to cope with loss and damage they did not cause. However, despite the celebrations, the new UN Loss and Damage Fund has only received $725 million in pledges. 

We need a sub-goal for loss and damage in the New Collective Quantified Goal (“NCQG”) on climate finance, to be debated over the coming days at the mid-year UN climate negotiations in Bonn and the agreed at COP29 in Baku. It is immoral for developed countries to be blocking such a sub-goal. 

It is outrageous that nomads and frontline communities should be left to fend for themselves and see their ancestral lifestyles, identities and cultures eroded, while some wealthy nations prosper from investment in fossil fuels and find public finance for their own purposes but not for climate finance. We refuse to be collateral damage in a game of power and profit. 

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With climate negotiators gathered at mid-year UN talks in Bonn, Germany, to prepare for COP29, a critical question hangs in the air: how can we ensure that the money mobilized to address the climate crisis is not only sufficient in quantity, but also effective in quality? 

Negotiators have been tasked to set a new collective quantified goal, or NCQG, on climate finance, which rapidly scales the amount of money we need globally for climate action. In the face of stark needs, the NCQG must be ambitious.  

Experts estimate that by 2030, $2.4 trillion will be required annually to support the needs of developing countries alone. 

“Great enabler of climate action” – UN urges Bonn progress on new finance goal

With just five months before the goal is on the decision-making table at COP29, it is also critical that negotiators consider the issue of quality – such as the type of financing, the ways money is accessed, alignment with national priorities, the predictability of funds, and their impact. 

High-quality climate finance should not create additional burdens and has clear pathways to access for countries and communities in need. However, many developing countries have expressed concern that the current quality of finance is far from where it needs to be. 

Concessional and accessible 

An important signal of quality in climate finance is the degree of concessionality – or how favorable the terms of financing are. Concessional finance includes grants and loans with low interest rates and longer repayment periods, which are easier for recipient countries to manage.  

Concessional tools also have potential to scale action by mobilizing private finance. These ‘blended finance’ approaches can often do far more than a traditional grant or loan. For example, to build a solar plant in Uzbekistan, the World Bank utilized concessional loans to mitigate financial risk and incentivize private-sector participation. 

However, in recent years, more than 70% of public climate finance has been delivered through loans, most of which have been non-concessional. This poses a challenge as many developing countries face burgeoning debt crises, and non-concessional loans risk further indebting these vulnerable states.  

Yet, countries in debt distress like Ghana and Zambia still received 17% of their climate finance through loans in 2021. Without proper concessionality, climate finance meant to build resilience can paradoxically make things worse. 

Rich nations meet $100bn climate finance goal – two years late 

Another measure of quality is the accessibility of finance. Increased climate finance must come with clear channels of access for developing countries, but bureaucratic hurdles, limited transparency, and rigid funding terms can hinder governments from accessing international funding streams.  

For example, small island states have struggled to access resources from climate funds due to capacity constraints in navigating the finance landscape. Access to private finance is also lacking as private funders perceive high risks of investing in emerging markets. If climate finance flows remain unavailable or inaccessible to developing countries, it will be impossible to meaningfully address their needs and priorities. 

Multi-layered goal 

The structure of the NCQG can incorporate elements of impact, concessionality and access. Negotiators should pursue a goal with multiple layers – setting a support target for providing public finance to developing countries, alongside an investment target for mobilizing all sources of finance globally. 

The support goal should be underpinned by concessional finance, targeting the national priorities of developing countries through grant and other non-debt financial instruments fit for purpose. These layers can foster blended approaches that scale available finance and enable greater access without creating new debt burdens. 

Lastly, for public finance to more effectively open new channels of access, we need steady reform in the broader financial system, including the multilateral development banks (MDBs). The MDBs are undertaking reforms to simplify access and increase lending capacity, and made new announcements at the World Bank’s Spring Meetings in April, which will allow public financing from MDBs to catalyze greater private finance flows and mitigate risks of debt distress. 

Pairing quantitative and qualitative elements should be at the top of the agenda in Bonn. Many countries have already called for qualitative elements to be incorporated into the goal. Now, delivering this quality – via greater concessionality, accessibility, and innovation – will be vital to ensure that climate finance can play a transformative role in addressing the complex challenges posed by climate change. 

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The compromise was agreed on Thursday evening by the UN Climate Change bureau, a group of top diplomats representating each of the UN’s regions, after months of speculation and tensions over how climate talks can resume.

It follows calls by both UN chief António Guterres and the UK Cop26 presidency to hold formal negotiations online and avoid further delays. Resolution on the most contentious elements of the Paris Agreement rulebook, notably around carbon trading, is long overdue.

The talks, which are usually held over a fortnight in the German city of Bonn, have been extended to a three-week meeting, scheduled from 31 May to 17 June.

This will help accommodate different time zones and ensure negotiating groups are able to schedule coordination meetings in between sessions, UN Climate Change said in a statement.

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Discussions during the meeting will remain informal, which means that no agreement will be adopted until diplomats can meet in person.

The idea is to allow negotiators to discuss potential compromises on a number of contentious issues and work towards a draft text that could be ready for approval when physical talks resume.

Details on how the meeting will run are expected to be shared with countries in three weeks’ time.

“It’s progress,” one bureau member told Climate Home News. “This may not be the ideal scenario, but it provides a basis to do some serious work and catch up with some of the delays.”

Today, the Bureau of @UNFCCC agreed to hold a virtual meeting from 31 May 2021 to 17 June 2021. Progress on #ClimateChange is indeed a top priority in the international agenda. The importance of the June sessional period is even greater this year considering the urgency pic.twitter.com/KHcRDgRnwL

— Carolina Schmidt (@CarolaSchmidtZ) April 15, 2021

In a letter sent to all parties ahead of the meeting, Cop26 president designate Alok Sharma urged nations to support holding formal negotiations online.

“Frankly, they are no substitute for formal sessions,” he wrote, but he added “it is clear to me that we cannot afford to put formal work on hold.”

Quamrul Chowdhury, of Bangaldesh, a lead negotiator for the group of least developed countries (LDC), told Climate Home News the decision was “second best” and it would be challenging for developing nations with poor connectivity. But “we have no options,” he said, because progress had to be made this year. 

Tanguy Gahouma-Bekale, of Gabon, chair of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), called for extra talks to be held in person between July and September if possible, or right before the start of Cop26 in November, so decisions could be made.

“The AGN supports the need to maintain the momentum for climate action and to support parties in their efforts to address climate change urgently,” he said.

The @UNFCCC COP Bureau has agreed to hold a virtual meeting from 31 May to 17 June. Must maximize progress and minimize delay of #ClimateAction but key to ensure full and effective participation of all. The voices of the vulnerable must be heard.

— LDC Chair (@LDCChairUNFCCC) April 16, 2021

UN Climate Change said the arrangement followed the principle of “maximizing progress and minimizing delays” and would allow negotiators to “advance the extensive work that needs to be addressed” ahead of Cop26.

The secretariat will provide the support needed to ensure “full and effective participation” of all parties “in a fair and inclusive” way. Observers will be able to participate “in the same manner as during in-person meetings,” it added.

Guterres previously said he had instructed UN officials to make offices and venues around the world available for negotiators to participate in virtual talks, creating regional hubs with stable internet connection.

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Diplomats are due to finalise a number of unresolved issues in the Paris Agreement rulebook, including the design of an international carbon market and common timeframes for national climate pledges.

Negotiators have taken part in informal discussions and consultations online but no formal negotiations since the Cop25 summit in Madrid, Spain, in December 2019.

A UK government spokesperson said: “We are working tirelessly to deliver a safe, successful Cop26 in Glasgow this November and want to be able to hold this in person. As hosts, we recognise how urgently the world must come together to agree action to tackle climate change.”

The UK government says it is assessing a range of options to make Cop26 a safe in-person event but has repeatedly declined to share its scenario planning with Climate Home News.

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Diplomats and politicians from around the world will gather in Bonn next week to discuss the details of implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement – and this includes the US.

This will be the first time diplomats have met since Donald Trump made his June 1 declaration he will withdraw the US from the deal. Under the terms of the accord, he cannot do so until 2020.

Despite the new White House position, the job of US diplomats arriving in Bonn next week is likely to remain much the same as it has for years, steered by a team of US civil servants that have spent most of the last decade navigating the complicated world of UN climate policy.

“In the past, the US delegation has had a couple of key goals. One is to move the ball forward in a big way to think creatively and ambitiously about how to work with the world’s governments to take forward climate action. The second has been the nitty gritty of how the Paris Agreement actually works,” said Reed Schuler, a former climate change negotiator at the state department, who now works as a policy advisor to Washington state governor Jay Inslee.

“For the moment, I expect the second to remain basically on track. I think that the US still has a really good team of civil servants, a team that is going to keep working and keep their heads down, and keep hammering out the details of the agreement that they all helped to negotiate a few years ago,” said Schuler.

“On the first category, I think that work is dead for the time being. The part of the job that was making bold and ambitious visions in concert with the world, that’s not happening.”

Nazhat Shameem Khan, the chief negotiator for Fiji who will preside over the talks, said the US delegation had contributed “constructively” at a lead up meeting in the Pacific island nation last month. Sources at those talks confirmed this characterisation. Although she would not be drawn on details, Khan said the US  sent a “very good signal” that the talks would not be disrupted.

Bonn COP23 climate talks

When? 6-17 November, 2017

Where? Bonn, Germany

What? A meeting of 197 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, where the implementation of the Paris climate agreement will be the major point of negotiations.

Not just Donald Trump news! Climate Home will be taking its biggest ever team to the talks.

How to keep up? Sign up to Climate Home’s newsletter, Facebook and Twitter feeds for the most in-depth, dedicated reporting from this critical meeting.

Cop23, as the 23rd conference of parties is known, will not be a stage for high-level political decisions, but for working out the kind of technical details that will ensure the Paris Agreement can be implemented, but which rarely make it into the public eye.

While the Obama administration positioned the US for the first time as a willing partner in the international climate discussions – even participating in the ‘High Ambition Coalition’ that formed at the 2015 conference in Paris – its stance on many issues was far from radical.

“Much of that stuff was created by the US to fulfil a strong mandate on promoting increased transparency and to move away from a bifurcated system. That’s not just the Obama administration – that goes back to the George W Bush years,” said Andrew Light, who worked as a senior advisor to the US Special Envoy on Climate Change during the Obama government.

For instance, when countries were negotiating the Paris Agreement, the US argued that there should be a single system for accountability and transparency, with flexibility built into this mechanism, rather than two separate systems for developed and developing countries.

“Both Republicans and Democrats want to see China, India and other countries increase the robustness and frequency of their reporting, for example,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“That’s not an issue that divides parties in the US, as opposed to maybe finance, where the Trump position is obviously very different to the Obama administration – but that is handled at a different level.”

But this year, experienced US negotiators will find the political calculus has changed, with its hard-won alliance with China now dismantled, and other countries disappointed at the belligerence and backtracking of the US president over climate change.

What the US does achieve at Cop23 will likely be down to what remains of a seasoned team, which can draw on a well of trust built up over years in the job.

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The delegation will be led by career diplomat Thomas Shannon, who most observers see as a steady hand and certainly not a Trump acolyte. Trigg Talley, who was the top non-political climate negotiator in Obama’s state department will be a familiar presence behind the US nameplate.

State department negotiator Andrew Rakestraw will lead discussions on transparency during the talks next week, alongside its old ally China.

Rakestraw’s continuation of this nonpartisan role – which he also filled at Cop22 in Marrakech – could suggest a willingness by other parties to continue engaging with and trusting US negotiators. On Monday, Chinese official Xie Zhenhua extended a hand to the US diplomats, saying China wanted to “step up cooperation” with the US while it remained a party to the Paris deal.

That’s not to say Rakestraw’s role will be exactly the same. The team of US civil servants will find itself in an “extremely awkward” position, representing a government that doesn’t believe in climate change at an international climate change conference, said Schuler. Many negotiators left the team following Trump’s election, finding themselves unable to represent the government’s positions.

“In terms of the very specific role of negotiators on the ground, there are a lot of people in this process who have been in it for a while and have very deep relationships. Andrew Rakestraw is a superb civil servant who has strong relationships with his counterparts. He still has the trust of other negotiators… He’s not there with some new political agenda to throw things off track, because he wouldn’t do that,” said Schuler.

Nonetheless, the team is unlikely to draw attention to themselves. They are unlikely to make any efforts to “renegotiate” the Paris Agreement – which Trump suggested in his initial announcement, to widespread dismissal from other nations – or to “re-engage” with the deal.

“I don’t think that’s what the delegation is going there to do either. Fundamentally, that’s a White House call,” added Light.

The spectre of a president who is opposed to the Paris deal could also loom over the team, who ultimately wait on instructions from their political bosses.

“Obviously, the negotiating instructions to the professional team, those can always change based on people in the secretary’s office or the White House,” said Meyer.

And there is always potential for political bombshells in the second week, when ministerial level appointees often turn up at the talks. Trump’s environment chief Scott Pruitt, who has led the campaign to rescind Obama’s domestic climate policies, is widely rumoured to be planning to visit the conference.

The cancellation of US donations to the Green Climate Fund could lead the ever-controversial topic of finance to rear its head, while recent extreme weather events could put the spotlight on adaptation and loss and damage.

Meanwhile, camped just outside the formal negotiations an alternative US diplomatic effort will be making its presence felt. The “US Climate Action Centre”, funded by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, will host US states, cities, businesses and institutions that want to demonstrate the federal government’s impotency when it comes to derailing climate action.

The We’re Are Still In coalition, which is behind the presence in Bonn, claims to represent more than a third of US citizens. It is one of a plethora of climate coalitions and initiatives to have formed among subnational US governments.

Washington governor Inslee told journalists this week: “Donald Trump cannot stop us. He cannot stop me from enforcing my executive order. I have put a cap on carbon pollution, it’s the first one by executive order in American history… He does not have the constitutional authority to stop me and my state from doing that.”

California governor Jerry Brown – a major antagonist of Trump – has been appointed special advisor for states and regions by the conference’s Fijian presidency.

Khan said Brown would play an “inspirational role” but will not be invited into the formal negotiations. She said it was important to include “people and institutions, which are passionate about climate action and who have actually transformed the environment that they have control over” in the talks.

“It’s remarkable the backbone that’s being shown right now [by the states],” said president and CEO of the World Resources Institute Andrew Steer. “But that doesn’t mean we can assume no needed role for the federal government.”

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