Bonn agenda finally adopted after tough fight
Anyone would think there’s no climate emergency. The mid-year UN climate talks in Bonn were meant to open on Monday morning, to advance negotiations on the road to COP30 in Brazil on issues such as how to measure adaptation, transitioning away from fossil fuels and climate finance. More than a day and a half later, they finally started for real.
A delayed opening plenary was abandoned on Monday night as countries rowed over the agenda. After much wrangling behind closed doors, it was restarted and ended early Tuesday evening with the adoption of items to be negotiated, to polite applause and a bigger sense of discontent than satisfaction, especially among developing countries.
The most contentious issue was developing countries’ request to include two agenda items on the implementation of Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement – on finance provided by rich nations – and on climate change-related unilateral trade measures.
The European Union (EU) expressed its opposition from the beginning and later attempted to bring Articles 9.2 and 9.3 to the table, which refer to the possibility of other sources of finance, including voluntary contributions from other countries – always a red flag for China.
Developing countries appeared united in their requests for negotiations on climate finance and trade on the first two days of the Bonn talks. The results? They managed to get those issues onto the work agenda for the next eight days, but not quite as they had hoped.
On Article 9.1, the chairs of the talks at Bonn will hold “substantive consultations” and report back on their outcomes at COP30 in Belem.
And regarding the unilateral trade measures – code for carbon taxes on imports to the EU and some other developed countries – a footnote was added to the agenda saying the topic would be discussed under under relevant agenda items, including the Just Transition Work Programme.
“The past 30 hours have been hard and have not reflected the urgency that we face,” the UN climate chief Simon Stiell told the subdued end of the session.
The aftershocks of the bitter exchanges between countries rippled through the plenary hall as delegates took to the floor after the agenda was adopted.
Speaking on behalf of the Like-Minded Group of Developing Countries (LMDC) – which had initially put forward the contentious agenda items – Bolivia’s Diego Pacheco blamed the delay on developed countries, accusing them of refusing to discuss “issues that impact developing countries” while shifting their financial responsibilities to the private sector. “This is unacceptable,” he added.
Echoing Pacheco’s words, India’s negotiator said he was “extremely disappointed” with rich countries’ “reluctance” to talk about their “financial obligations”.
“It is hard to remain silent when our positions and motivations are mischaracterised by our partners,” hit back a representative of the EU, which had most fiercely resisted the inclusion of the agenda items (some said in the absence of the US at the talks). “When we don’t agree, we work together to reach compromises that allow us to move forward,” he added.
With the agenda finally sorted, negotiators can now turn their full attention to equally thorny discussions on things like the transition away from fossil fuels and indicators to help countries adapt to a warming world.
“We need to demonstrate to the world that climate cooperation can deliver,” Stiell pleaded with delegates, “now more than ever”.
UN climate body’s work balloons – but not its funding
For that desperately needed climate action to be stepped up, Stiell warned in his planned welcome speech – not delivered but only posted on the UNFCCC website due to the delayed opening – that “the acceleration still needed will only be possible if our process is adequately resourced”.
He said in the written comments that governments had given the UNFCCC more work to do but not more money to do it with. The body has been cutting costs, he said, “but this approach is not sustainable”.
The UNFCCC has released a document showing which parts of its work are under-funded. Particularly cash-strapped activities include communications campaigns promoting the UNFCCC process’s achievements, facilitating civil society participation in the process and enhancing the capacity of young negotiators.
A note from Stiell says that funding constraints “hindered efforts to modernise digital platforms and conferencing systems, including cybersecurity infrastructure; and adversely affected the timely processing of applications for UNFCCC observer status and the implementation of the gender and [Action for Climate Empowerment] workstreams”
Another document shows how much things cost. About three-quarters of the UNFCCC’s costs are salaries and these are set under a UN-wide system – so hard to get down.
Smaller costs like a five-day workshop with 100 people can cost €0.68m euros ($0.79m) to put on while a five-day official trip costs €3,700 per person ($4,284).
The tight budget situation has also led to “significantly reduced interpretation services” at the Bonn talks, with negotiators told they would not have them available at Tuesday’s delayed plenary and would need to speak in English.
Brazil’s ‘act of sabotage’ on oil
As the Brazilian COP30 Presidency attempts to take forward discussions at UN climate talks on the transition away from fossil fuels, their government colleagues back home today auctioned off the rights to extract oil and gas in 172 areas of Brazil and its waters – 47 of them offshore near the mouth of the Amazon River.
In Rio de Janeiro, the auction unfolded live on camera. The national anthem was played and a room of men in suits from around the world sat down to begin the bidding. An introductory video showed a plant being watered with bare hands while a caption advertised incentives to reduce the greenhouse gases from oil production.
Patricia Baran, head of the national oil agency ANP, told the cameras that other countries are still announcing new oil and gas fields too and that the blocks auctioned off will include additional environmental and social protections.
The bidding started with the controversial Amazon blocks – and Brazil’s national oil company Petrobras, American firms ExxonMobil and Chevron, and China’s state-owned CNPC were the winners of those.
Brazilian climate campaigners in Bonn expressed sympathy with the COP30 Presidency – whose CEO Ana Toni spent decades in environmental NGOs like Greenpeace and Action Aid.
Stela Herschmann, a climate specialist at Observatório do Clima, told a press conference that the auction was “an act of sabotage” against the climate and against “the Brazilian diplomats that are here and doing their best in Bonn to rally the world towards an ambitious COP in November”.
A press statement from 350.org picked out two saboteurs: the president of national oil company Petrobras, Magda Chambriard, who last month copied Donald Trump’s “drill baby drill” slogan, and Brazil’s mines and energy minister, Alexandre Silveira, who has said Brazil “should not be ashamed of being oil producers”.
ClimaInfo research estimates that, when burned, the oil and gas from the blocks being auctioned off would release 11 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Observatório do Clima’s Claudio Angelo told Climate Home today that an oil spill from the 47 offshore blocks near Belém and the Amazon River would devastate coral reefs, mangroves and the coastlines of both Brazil and neighbouring French Guiana.
The Amazon region now holds nearly one-fifth of the world’s recently discovered oil and natural gas reserves, establishing itself as a new global frontier for the fossil fuel industry, a recent investigation by Climate Home’s partner InfoAmazonia found.
All this comes on the same day that the International Energy Agency released its oil report for 2025, suggesting that growth in oil supply will be twice as fast growth in oil demand during the rest of the decade. The IEA’s head Fatih Birol said “oil markets look set to be well-supplied”.
Angelo said this means there’s a risk that Brazil will make a loss on these oil and gas fields, especially if the world limits fossil fuel use to curb global warming.
Bonn or London – where’s the action at?
On the ground in Bonn, it feels like much of the climate energy is slipping away from the UNFCCC process. Just 7,731 people have registered to participate, a 10% drop on last year – and there definitely seem to be fewer journalists.
Many of the COP30 Presidency’s big-hitters will be skipping some or all of Bonn’s second week to go to London Climate Action Week, where they will be joined by Stiell’s boss – the head of the UN, Antonio Guterres. He will give a special address at E3G’s State of Climate Politics Forum next Tuesday.
One of Stiell’s predecessors, Christiana Figueres, wrote recently that the “potential for impact” is shifting from climate diplomacy to climate economics “and that shift is being staged not so much within COP venues, but at Climate Weeks in New York, London, and other cities around the world.” (London may eclipse NYC in importance this year, some are saying, as Trump’s policies threaten to scare the green crowd away.)
Nonetheless, Stiell asserted in his undelivered opening speech for the Bonn talks, “this process matters, deeply”, adding that it is “delivering real progress”.
He noted that “without UN-convened climate multilateralism”, the world would be headed for up to 5C of global warming, which has been cut to around 3C, adding: “it’s a measure of how far we’ve come, and how far to go.”
“These sessions are where we move from concept to clarity – across sectors, systems, and societies. You are laying down the tracks that further deliver implementation,” he said in words that were never heard by negotiators.
The post Bonn Bulletin: Slow start to climate talks fails to reflect urgency appeared first on Climate Home News.
Bonn Bulletin: Slow start to climate talks fails to reflect urgency
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Climate Change
DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations
Welcome to Carbon Brief’s DeBriefed.
An essential guide to the week’s key developments relating to climate change.
This week
Bonn talks close
‘SIDE-STEPPING AND STALLING’: UN climate talks in Bonn have ended in “gridlock”, according to Climate Home News. The outlet reported on the failure to balance developing countries’ need for climate-adaptation finance with “richer nations’ desire to move forward” on emissions cuts. It added that both topics were subject to “rule 16”, meaning no agreement could be reached and work will be pushed to the COP31 summit in Turkey. Inside Climate News quoted UN climate executive secretary Simon Stiell, who said the talks had seen “side-stepping and stalling”.
JUST TRANSITION: One “glimmer of hope” came from negotiations on achieving a “just transition”, reported Euronews. The news outlet said negotiators “made headway on operationalising the Belém-Antalya mechanism”, intended to support people in the shift to a low-carbon economy. However, Politico concluded that much of the focus in Bonn had “shift[ed] to efforts outside diplomatic talks – raising questions about the future of global climate negotiations”.
‘ATTACKING SCIENCE’: Agence France-Presse reported on the EU, Switzerland and “dozens of developing nations” warning of “attacks on science” by a “small group of fossil-fuels interests” in Bonn. Table Briefings explained that “the 1.5C target is increasingly being challenged” and the role of the UN climate-science panel – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – in an upcoming assessment of global climate progress “remains controversial”. See Carbon Brief’s full write-up of the talks for more detail.
US-Iran deal
PRICE DROP: The US and Iran announced that they have reached an interim agreement to halt the war and reopen the strait of Hormuz, reported Bloomberg. Oil prices have fallen, as the “long-awaited deal” began the process of “eas[ing]” the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, according to the New York Times. The Associated Press noted that high fuel prices will “likely outlast the Iran war”.
‘OIL GLUT’: The Financial Times reported that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has forecast a “glut of oil” emerging next year, if the peace deal holds. The IEA said this would allow countries to build new strategic reserves, as they “review their energy strategies and policies in response to the crisis”, according to Reuters.
‘NEW ERA’: Agence France-Presse reported that oil and gas companies have “few illusions about a return to normal for the Gulf energy industry after more than three months of blockage”. One analyst told the newswire that the war “showed the oil and gas industry that Hormuz risk is no longer just a geopolitical headline”.
Around the world
- OCEAN MONITOR: The Trump administration is “abandoning its plan” to dismantle a $368m ocean monitoring system key for tracking climate change after a “bipartisan backlash on Capitol Hill”, reported the New York Times.
- CORAL HAVEN: The New York Times covered preliminary research, presented at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, suggesting there could be three times as many “coral refugia” – where corals are relatively safe from climate change – than previously thought.
- BAD CREDIT: Down to Earth reported that the first carbon credits issued under the Paris Agreement’s new Article 6.4 mechanism are “facing scrutiny over alleged links to institutions controlled by Myanmar’s military junta”.
- OIL BACKTRACK: Reuters reported that oil-and-gas company Equinor has dropped a renewable-energy target and scaled back clean investments, while another Reuters story noted that Shell is selling off its offshore wind assets.
1.1 billion
The number of children facing “at least three overlapping climate hazards”, according to a new Unicef report covered by Agence France-Presse.
Latest climate research
- Including the “permafrost carbon-climate feedback” in climate models increases the chance of exceeding “tipping elements” – such as the Greenland ice sheets, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or Amazon rainforest – by up to 50% | Environmental Research Letters
- The intensity of influenza outbreaks could decline in temperate regions, but increase in tropical areas over the next century, as the climate warms | PNAS Nexus
- European snow cover has declined by 20% for December and January since the start of the industrial era, revealing an “unprecedented ongoing shrinkage of European winters” | Communications Earth & Environment
(For more, see Carbon Brief’s in-depth daily summaries of the top climate news stories on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)
Captured
The more than 2m battery electric vehicles (BEVs), 1m “plug-in” hybrids (PHEVs) and 100,000 electric vans on UK roads are already saving drivers a total of around £3bn a year, according to new Carbon Brief analysis. This amounts to savings of more than £1,100 a year in fuel costs for each BEV driver in the UK. The analysis comes amid reports in UK media this week that the government is considering “watering down” its EV sales targets.
Spotlight
Oceans rising at UN climate talks
The state of the world’s oceans is inextricably linked to the changing climate – and many delegates at UN climate talks want to see more focus on this issue, reports Carbon Brief.
Oceans are often described as the world’s “greatest ally” against climate change – absorbing 30% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and most of the heat generated by those emissions.
They are also the site of important climate solutions, such as huge offshore windfarms and the shipping industry’s transition to cleaner fuels.
At the same time, the oceans themselves present a growing danger to coastal communities and sea life due to sea level rise, marine heatwaves and ocean acidification.
These diverse issues have led to growing calls within the UN climate process for more focus on oceans. During climate negotiations this week in Bonn – known as SB64 – nations and civil society had a chance to air these views during an “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
‘Elevate action’
Oceans first entered UN climate outcomes in 2019, when the final COP25 negotiated text requested a new “dialogue” on “the ocean and climate change to consider how to strengthen mitigation and adaptation action”.
The following years saw this dialogue established as an annual event. However, the political weight of these discussions has been limited.
COP31 is being co-led by Turkey and Australia, but with Pacific islands playing a supporting role. These small islands sometimes self-identify as “large ocean states”, stressing the ocean’s centrality in their societies.
In Bonn, figures from across the presidency threw their weight behind this issue. Chris Bowen, an Australian minister and incoming COP31 “president of negotiations”, told attendees:
“Australia, Turkey and the Pacific see an important opportunity to elevate ocean-based climate action.”
Strategies and finance
The two-day dialogue in Bonn involved a series of panels, statements and breakout groups.
One of the main topics was how oceans are integrated into national climate plans under the Paris Agreement, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
Three-quarters of the latest round of NDCs mention oceans, with conservation of “blue carbon” ecosystems the most frequently described action. (Landscapes such as mangroves can both absorb CO2 and protect coastal areas.)
Delegates also discussed alignment with the UN biodiversity process, as well as ocean finance, which currently makes up less than 1% of all climate finance.
(As discussions were taking place in Bonn, country officials also gathered in Mombasa, Kenya for the 11th Our Ocean Conference. Carbon Brief’s associate editor Giuliana Viglione attended the conference and will publish a full summary shortly.)
Developing countries were clear that many of the ocean-related actions in their NDCs would depend on receiving more financial support.
‘Political momentum’
With the backing of the COP31 presidency, delegates were hopeful about where this year’s dialogue could lead.
Charles Hamilton, an advisor for the Bahamas who spoke for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in the dialogue, told Carbon Brief that island representatives “are not traveling thousands of miles to just talk and pat ourselves on the back”. He added:
“A dialogue that just remains a dialogue is just more talk – no action.”
Given that, he said “discussions in the dialogue must move into COP decisions and the decisions must be actioned”, noting the importance of finance.
Marina Corrêa, oceans lead at WWF-Brazil, pointed to an upcoming UN climate change Standing Committee on Finance forum as a space to ramp up pressure on ocean finance.
More broadly, she wanted to see the presidencies translate their support into a “leader-level ocean initiative” that could “mainstream” oceans across negotiations.
“We have a really interesting opportunity, in terms of political momentum,” Corrêa told Carbon Brief.
Watch, read, listen
‘HOTTER THAN HELL’: An episode of the BBC’s Rare Earth podcast titled “hotter than hell” considered the issue of extreme heat, with input from experts and “people facing up to the hottest temperatures on the planet”.
NOT BROKEN?: John Drake, a professor of ecology at the University of Georgia, wrote an essay for Aeon – also re-published as a Guardian “long read” – questioning the framing of ecosystems and climate systems “breaking down”.
ON COURSE: On his Volts podcast, US climate journalist David Roberts interviewed UK climate minister Katie White, quizzing her about whether the UK will “stay the course with its climate plans”.
Coming up
- 20-28 June: London climate action week
- 21 June: Colombia presidential runoff
- 24 June: UK Climate Change Committee progress in reducing emissions 2026 report to parliament
Pick of the jobs
- Mongabay, managing editor – Africa | Salary: Unknown. Location: Global
- Contexte, environment reporter – Brussels | Salary: €45,000-€60,000. Location: Brussels
- Climate 200, communications director | Salary: Unknown. Location: Australia
- Energy Tracker Asia, energy transition correspondent | Salary: $3,000-$4,000 per month. Location: South-east Asia (remote)
DeBriefed is edited by Daisy Dunne. Please send any tips or feedback to debriefed@carbonbrief.org.
This is an online version of Carbon Brief’s weekly DeBriefed email newsletter. Subscribe for free here.
The post DeBriefed 19 June 2026: Bonn talks end in ‘gridlock’ | Energy’s ‘new era’ | Oceans in climate negotiations appeared first on Carbon Brief.
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