Last month, Germany became the first major economy to commit to a target to reach “net-negative” emissions later this century.
While “net-zero” describes a state where a country’s emissions are balanced by the amount of greenhouse gases it can remove from the atmosphere, “net-negative” describes a state of removals exceeding emissions.
Therefore, when a country achieves “net-negative” emissions, it has not only stopped its contribution to climate change, but is actively helping to reduce warming.
Many of the scenarios for achieving the world’s most ambitious climate goals require the world to become net-negative in the second half of this century.
In these scenarios, failure to cut emissions fast enough in the near term causes the world to “overshoot” its climate targets, meaning they can only be met later on in the century by removing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.
Some experts have also called on developed countries to aim to reach net-negative emissions earlier on this century, arguing they have a moral responsibility to reduce climate change and to create space for other countries to emit as they develop.
However, the ability of countries to remove CO2 from the atmosphere is defined by a range of factors, including their land area, forest cover and population size.
There is also a risk that setting distant net-negative targets could become a “distraction” from the urgent need to reduce emissions this decade, a researcher tells Carbon Brief.
Below, Carbon Brief explores which countries are or have targets to be net-negative, as well as the moral and scientific arguments for setting such a milestone.
- What is meant by ‘net-negative’ emissions?
- Which countries are already at net-negative emissions?
- Which countries are aiming for net-negative emissions?
- Does the world need to be net-negative to meet global climate goals?
- Do some countries need to be net-negative to meet climate goals fairly?
What is meant by ‘net-negative’ emissions?
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “net-negative emissions” is achieved when human-caused greenhouse gas removals exceed human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
The specification of “greenhouse gases” rather than CO2 ”makes a very big difference” when it comes to net-negative emissions, says Prof Joeri Rogelj, an IPCC lead author and climate scientist at Imperial College London.
The reason for this, he explains, is that there are some non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions that will be almost impossible to eliminate completely. This is true even if the world makes every effort to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, the global deal aimed at keeping temperatures well below 2C by the end of the century, with an ambition of keeping them below 1.5C.
This includes, for example, methane emissions from rice production. There are currently no technologies available to eliminate these emissions completely – and it is unrealistic to expect rice production to cease entirely in the future.
Scientists call these kinds of emissions “residual non-CO2 emissions”. Rogelj explains:
“Because of residual non-CO2 emissions, we will always reach net-zero CO2 emissions before we reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”
To reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, some additional CO2 removal will be needed to compensate for impossible-to-eliminate non-CO2 emissions, he adds:
“To reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, we already need to reach net-negative CO2 emissions – because we know that non-CO2 emissions will always be an emissions contribution.”
Because of this, a national target to reach net-negative greenhouse gas emissions can always be interpreted as “significantly more ambitious” than a net-negative CO2 target over the same timescale, he adds.
Which countries are already at net-negative emissions?
Though the vast majority of countries are not close to being net-zero – let alone net-negative – there are a small number of global south countries that already remove more CO2 from the atmosphere than they emit each year.
This net-negative group includes Suriname in South America, Panama in Central America and Bhutan in south Asia.
Suriname is one of the most highly forested countries in the world. It has trees over 97% of its land surface.
Trees absorb CO2 as they grow and can store it in their leaves, trunks and roots. Tropical forests are particularly carbon dense, storing a quarter of all the world’s land carbon.
As well as being heavily forested, Suriname is also the smallest country in South America by population, with just 618,000 people.
Its low consumption combined with its ability to remove large amounts of CO2 through its forests each year has allowed Suriname to remain a net-negative country.
However, Suriname’s UN climate plan, known as its “nationally determined contribution” (NDC), says that “significant international support is needed” from developed countries in order for its forests to keep being protected.
In 2023, Reuters reported that Suriname has plans to sell forest carbon offset credits to developed nations under the Paris Agreement.
This means that Suriname wants to sell off some of its ability to remove CO2 from the atmosphere through its forests to more-polluting developed countries, who can then claim that they have effectively paid to reduce their own emissions.
Suriname argues this will bring in finance needed to protect its forests, Reuters said.
However, experts have questioned whether developed nations should be able to claim that they have reduced their own emissions by protecting Suriname’s forests. This is because these forests may have remained intact even without developed nations’ investment. If this were the case, it would mean that no real emissions reduction would have taken place.
(See Carbon Brief’s in-depth carbon offsets series to understand more about the accounting problems associated with forest carbon offset schemes.)
Much like Suriname, Bhutan in south Asia is characterised by high forest cover and a small population. It has trees covering 71% of its land, and 51% of its total land area is covered by strict laws ensuring forest cover is maintained.
At the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021, Bhutan started a “carbon-negative” club with Suriname as a founding member.
During the summit, Panama’s president declared that the country was also net-negative and that it would be joining the carbon-negative club.
According to Panama’s NDC, its emissions are currently more than balanced by its CO2 removals, which come largely from its forests. This is despite the country’s tree cover declining by 8.5% between 2000 and 2022.
The country has targets to restore 50,000 hectares of forest by 2050 and to cut its energy emissions by at least 24% by 2050, when compared to a business-as-usual baseline, according to its NDC.
At COP28 in Dubai in 2023, Panama also joined the Group of Negative Emitters, a small alliance of countries that are or are aiming to be net-negative led by Denmark (more on this below).
Aside from these three countries, there are other global south countries that claim to be “carbon sinks” in their NDCs – implying that they remove more CO2 than they emit each year.
This includes the heavily forested nations Gabon in Central Africa and Guyana in South America, as well as small island nations the Comoros, a volcanic archipelago off Africa’s east coast, and Niue, a south Pacific island.
The African island Madagascar has also claimed to be a carbon sink, but it is worth noting that the nation has lost 27% of its tree cover since 2001.
Which countries are aiming for net-negative emissions?
The past few years have seen a small number of global north countries commit to becoming net-negative on a variety of different timescales – and for a variety of different reasons.
Most recently in February 2024, Germany announced that it intends to introduce a target to reach net-negative greenhouse gas emissions by 2060.
In a document laying out the key features of its proposed target, the German government argues that reaching net-negative emissions, at least in some parts of the world, will be necessary to balance out unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions, such as methane from farming.
The government also says that, given the current pace of global emissions, limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C is looking “increasingly unlikely”.
It alludes to a situation in which the world first overshoots 1.5C and then uses CO2 removal techniques to bring temperatures back down, saying:
“Beyond carbon neutrality, net-negative emissions must therefore be used to reduce the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere again in order to meet the 1.5C target and thus minimise the risks of serious and irreversible consequences for humans and ecosystems on Earth.”
(More on this below in: Does the world need to be net-negative to meet global climate goals?)
Back in 2022, both Denmark and Finland announced targets to reach net-negative emissions.
Finland announced targets to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, and net-negative greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
According to the climate not-for-profit Carbon Gap, Finland’s 2035 and 2040 goals represent the most ambitious legally-binding CO2 removal targets of any country globally.
Climate Home News reported that Finland’s targets were based on an analysis by the country’s independent climate panel. The analysis aimed to calculate what Finland’s “fair share” of global emissions should be, based on its share of the global population, its ability to pay to reduce emissions and its historic responsibility for causing climate change.
Finnish environment minister Emma Kari told Climate Home it was “very important” that the target was underpinned by research, adding:
“High income countries have to take a progressive and active role when it comes to tackling climate change.”
(More on this below in: Do some countries need to be net-negative to meet climate goals fairly?)
Denmark, meanwhile, announced targets to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 and to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 110% by 2050, achieving net-negative emissions.
In a document explaining the rationale behind the new targets to the people of Denmark, the government said that the country has “an opportunity and an obligation to promote the spread of green solutions in the EU and globally”.
It said its new targets will “increase the implementation of already decided initiatives”, likely referring to the Paris Agreement.
At COP28 in December 2023, Denmark announced it was starting the Group of Negative Emitters, an alliance of countries that are at or are aiming for net-negative emissions. The group included Denmark, Finland and Panama.
However, it was neighbouring Sweden that was the first global north country to set a net-negative target.
Back in 2017, it committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 and net-negative emissions shortly after.
Reporting on Sweden’s climate law in 2017, New Scientist said it was the first country to significantly update its climate targets in light of the Paris Agreement.
One global north nation that has not yet set a net-negative target but has been advised to do so is Scotland.
Scotland has committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 – five years before the overall UK target of 2050.
The UK’s independent climate advisers, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), says that its central scenario for how the UK as a whole can reach its 2050 net-zero target sees Scotland becoming net-negative “well before” 2050.
Under this central scenario – known as the “balanced pathway” – Scotland reaches net-negative emissions sooner to compensate for slower action in Wales, England and Northern Ireland.
This reflects that Scotland has the largest remaining intact forests of any nation in the UK – and that Wales and Northern Ireland face a particularly steep challenge in reducing emissions in agriculture, the CCC says.
(Under the CCC’s most ambitious net-zero scenario – known as “tailwinds” – the UK as a whole reaches net-negative emissions shortly after 2042. The UK government has not indicated that it intends to act based on the CCC’s most ambitious scenario – and is currently behind on meeting its less ambitious targets.)
Another global north power that has been advised to set a net-negative target is the EU.
In advice published ahead of a recommendation for a new EU 2040 target in February, the bloc’s science advisers said that the EU could “improve the fairness” of its contribution to global climate action by adopting a net-negative target for “beyond 2050”.
EU members have not yet indicated that they are considering such a target.
Does the world need to be net-negative to meet global climate goals?
The question of whether, scientifically speaking, the world needs to reach net-negative greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet the Paris Agreement’s targets depends on what actions countries take in the next few years.
In its latest assessment of how the world can tackle climate change, the IPCC presents a range of scenarios for how the world can meet its temperature goals by the end of the century.
In some of these scenarios, global emissions fall extremely rapidly, avoiding the need for the world to reach net-negative greenhouse gas emissions.
However, because global emissions have remained so high in recent years, the path to limiting global warming to 1.5C or 2C is getting steeper and steeper, the IPCC says.
Many of its scenarios for keeping temperatures well below 2C by 2100 do rely on the world reaching net-negative greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of this century.
In these scenarios, failure to cut emissions fast enough in the next few years would see the world temporarily overshoot 1.5C. This is before large-scale CO2 removal techniques are rolled out globally, alongside ambitious measures to slash emissions, including rapid declines in fossil-fuel use.
At the point when greenhouse gas removals exceed emissions – when the world becomes net-negative – temperatures will be in decline and, depending on the scenario, may fall below 1.5C or 2C by the end of the century.
Summarising what the IPCC scenarios say about net-negative emissions, Rogelj says:
“Net-zero CO2 is a geophysical necessity, we need that to stop warming increasing. Net-zero greenhouse gases is more of a policy milestone. When we reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions – let alone net-negative greenhouse gas emissions – global warming will be slowly reducing at the rate of a couple of tenths of a degree per century.”
Although many of the IPCC scenarios see the world turning net-negative this century, there are some scenarios where the world takes immediate action to rapidly cut emissions – meaning temperatures can be kept at 1.5C without large amounts of CO2 removal.
The charts below, adapted from the IPCC’s report on how to tackle climate change, illustrate how global greenhouse gas emissions change under various scenarios where temperatures are kept to 1.5C or well below 2C by 2100.
In the first scenario, “Neg”, temperatures are highly likely to overshoot 1.5C this century before returning to this level of warming by 2100. In this scenario, the extensive use of CO2 removal techniques sees the world reach net-negative greenhouse gas emissions (turquoise dotted line) by 2080.
(CO2 removal techniques include direct air capture (DAC – purple), land-use change such as tree planting (blue) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS – green). All of these methods are discussed in more detail below.)
In the second scenario, GS, there is a gradual strengthening of climate policies, giving the world a 66% chance of limiting warming to well below 2C by 2100. In this scenario, the world reaches net-negative greenhouse gas emissions around 2090.
In the third scenario, LD, a low demand for energy coupled with a rapid fossil fuel phaseout sees net greenhouse gas emissions drop to near – but not below – zero, limiting warming to below 1.5C without the world becoming net-negative.
(For a more thorough look at scenarios for keeping global warming below 1.5C or 2C, see Carbon Brief’s recently published interactive on the topic.)
Although almost all IPCC scenarios limiting warming to 1.5C – and most that stay below 2C – see a role for large-scale CO2 removal, the report also notes that the techniques available for doing this are at varying levels of readiness and pose different challenges and trade-offs.
Currently, tree-planting and ecosystem restoration are the only “widely deployed” forms of CO2 removal, according to the IPCC.
However, research suggests that relying too much on land-based CO2 removal methods, such as tree-planting and BECCS – a still emerging technique involving burning crops to produce energy before capturing the resultant CO2 – could take up large areas of land, threatening wildlife and food production.
DAC – which involves directly removing CO2 from air using giant fans that use chemical reactions to filter out the greenhouse gas – is currently limited by its large energy requirements and by cost, the IPCC says.
It is also worth noting that, while the IPCC sets out various scenarios for meeting the 1.5C and 2C targets, it does not map out the role that individual countries can or should play in meeting these goals.
Some argue that, given their wealth and historic responsibility for climate change, it is only fair that developed countries reach net-negative emissions in order to create space for ongoing emissions in developing nations. This is discussed in more detail below.
Do some countries need to be net-negative to meet climate goals fairly?
When setting its net-negative target, Finland made it clear that the rationale was to do its “fair share” when it comes to tackling climate change.
Under the Paris Agreement adopted by nearly every country in the world in 2015, it is officially recognised that developed nations should “take the lead” with slashing their emissions. Additionally, developed nations committed to providing financial assistance to help developing nations transition their economies.
This reflects the fact that developed nations hold the most historic responsibility for climate change. For example, the US and Europe have produced nearly half of all of the greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere since the 1800s.
It also reflects the fact that developed nations have the most resources for addressing climate change.
It follows that developed nations should take the lead when it comes to reaching net-negative emissions, says Rogelj:
“Developed countries should decline emissions first and farthest. That also includes going net-negative, both CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions.”
Getting to net-negative emissions sooner could provide more room for developing nations to transition their economies while still prioritising development, he adds:
“When we think of the global pathway that needs to be achieved, the more ambitious that any country that is in a position to do so can be, the more leeway this provides for developing regions to pursue alternative paths.”
However, it is worth noting that not all countries will feasibly be able to go net-negative, he adds.
The ability of a country to go net-negative is defined by a variety of factors, including its land size, forest cover, economy and population size.
For example, heavily forested nations with relatively small populations will be more able to get to a position where they are removing more CO2 from the atmosphere than they are emitting each year.
Two out of three of the countries that are already at net-negative emissions, Bhutan and Suriname, are heavily forested with small populations.
Finland, which has the world’s most ambitious CO2 removal goals, has forests over nearly three-quarters of its land area.
Rogelj adds:
“I think countries that have CO2 removal potential should [set net-negative goals]. However, countries without CO2 removal potential, it’s useless to say you have to go net-negative.”
Prof David Reiner, a researcher of climate policy at the University of Cambridge, was part of a research effort to work out how the responsibility for CO2 removal could be shared equally between countries.
He says that trying to figure out who should be responsible for reaching net-negative greenhouse gas emissions is fraught with complicated questions, beyond which countries have the technical capacity. He tells Carbon Brief:
“It’s challenging to impose historical responsibility for climate change. We’ve seen in many areas, people chafe or resist what their grandparents might have done. One example is reparations for slavery. It becomes difficult to assign that. There are people here [in the UK] whose parents moved from the Indian subcontinent, whose emissions are they responsible for?”
He adds that there is a risk that more attention on setting net-negative targets could be a distraction from the urgent need for countries to reduce their emissions this decade:
“What I wouldn’t want to see is a rush for more and more countries to adopt net-negative targets to divert attention from the fact that they haven’t established how they’re going to get their net-zero targets. Or to say: ‘Well, now it’s even easier for us to justify missing our 2030 target, because look how tough our 2070 target is going to be.’”
Rogelj agrees that, while net-negative targets could have an important role to play in addressing climate change, there is a risk they could be a distraction unless coupled with more near-term action. He tells Carbon Brief:
“Any long-term target without a near-term plan is not credible.”
The post Explainer: Why some countries are aiming for ‘net-negative’ emissions appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Explainer: Why some countries are aiming for ‘net-negative’ emissions
Two weeks of tense UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany, have produced few tangible outcomes as diplomats faced “gridlock”.
Negotiators failed to find agreement in numerous areas, such as scaling up global emissions cuts and funding for climate adaptation.
In the closing plenary, many diplomats lamented weakened trust in the UN climate process, as it struggled to find its footing in a new geopolitical landscape.
As ever, climate finance was one of the greatest sources of tension between developed and developing countries, influencing the debate around adaptation and trade in the Bonn talks.
Many countries criticised “coordinated attacks” on science by those with “fossil-fuel interests”.
Some delegates saw progress on a “just transition mechanism” to support communities through decarbonisation as a positive outcome, with a package of texts agreed for the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Turkey.
Reporting from the talks in Bonn, Carbon Brief covers the key outcomes and disputes at the 64th biannual sessions of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) subsidiary bodies (SB64).
- Adaptation
- Just transition
- Climate finance
- Global stocktake
- Mitigation work programme
- Action agenda and new initiatives
- Climate science
- Fossil fuels
- Trade dialogues
- COP reform
- Ocean dialogue
- Road to COP31
Adaptation
Climate adaptation proved one of the most contentious areas of negotiation in Bonn. In particular, parties were unable to agree on text relating to the “global goal on adaptation” (GGA).
Across the two weeks, progress was “stuck, stalled or deferred”, even in the rooms of technical adaptation items, Jeffrey Qi, policy advisor with International Institute for Sustainable Development’s (IISD) resilience program, told Carbon Brief.
In many of the rooms, this was due to a “fault line” over finance, Ana Mulio Alvarez, policy advisor at thinktank E3G told Carbon Brief, as developing countries sought support to help protect themselves from escalating climate hazards.
Last year at COP30, parties had agreed on a new adaptation finance target within the “global mutirão”.
The text “calls for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance” for developing countries by 2035. This is largely expected to come from developed countries, which are obliged to provide climate finance under the Paris Agreement.
While this tripling target agreed in Brazil was broadly welcomed by developing countries, it lacked key details. For example, it did not specify the baseline for tripling, the parties which have to contribute or the types of finance that will be counted under the goal.
(Earlier drafts of the text in Belém had included reference to 2025 as the baseline, the deadline for a $40bn adaptation finance goal set at COP26. This led some parties and civil society organisations to state that the 2035 level ought to be $120bn.)
In Bonn, various parties said that the tripling target should also be included within the text on the GGA. This included the African group, small-island states (AOSIS), least developed countries (LDCs), some Latin American countries (AILAC), as well as the G77 and China.
They said that they would need finance to implement the GGA, especially as adaptation projects often rely on public, grant-based funding rather than private investment.
Canada, Norway and Japan were among those opposing a reference to the tripling target.
A first draft text on the GGA did not include a reference to the finance goal. Many parties again expressed their concern over this omission.
A second draft only included a reference to the tripling of adaptation finance within a bracketed opening paragraph. (Passages of text that are not yet agreed are shown in square brackets.)
A reference to tripling finance remained in the final draft, shown below. The entire text is surrounded by square brackets and is subject to negotiation and agreement at COP31.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Teresa Anderson, global lead on climate justice for ActionAid International, said:
“It’s been a huge fight to even get a soft acknowledgement of the Belém promise to triple adaptation finance, let alone a proper plan to meet that promise. It seems rich countries want to be able to quietly forget they ever said anything at all.”
Beyond the question of finance, a number of other GGA elements were discussed in Bonn. This included work on the “indicators”, a set of 59 ways to measure progress towards the GGA, which were agreed by parties at COP30.
The adoption of these indicators in Belém had proven difficult, despite experts having worked on them for two years. They were pushed through at the close of COP30 to mixed reactions.
Parties entered negotiations in Bonn amid the uncertainty this created. Alongside the indicators, the final text last year contained plans for a two-year “Belém-Addis vision” to further refine the indicator process.
As part of this, at SB64 parties worked towards creating a taskforce that would establish underlying data and methodologies for the indicators. However, the make-up of this taskforce became fraught, as parties disagreed on whether it should be technical or political.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Bethan Laughlin, senior policy specialist at the Zoological Society of London, said the negotiators were in “a very Groundhog Day’ situation”, where they were once again looking to experts to refine the indicator package, while struggling with the idea of ceding control of the process.
During negotiations in the second week, Brazil and the EU called for the taskforce to be expert-driven, while Grupo Sur, the like-minded developing countries (LMDCs) and the Arab group supported a party-driven taskforce.
As the talks moved into the final days of negotiations in Bonn, this remained a sticking point.
A final element of the GGA is the Baku adaptation roadmap (BAR), which was launched at COP29 in Azerbaijan. It is designed to help bring coherence across the multiple different adaptation efforts and advance progress towards the GGA.
At workshops during the first week in Bonn, parties focused on how the current adaptation framework supports the GGA and climate finance for adaptation.
In negotiations, the G77 and China called for the BAR to ensure access to finance in accordance with Article 9.1. This is the part of the Paris Agreement that refers to developed countries “providing” climate finance. (See: Climate finance.)
Canada, Japan, the UK and the EU all disagreed with this inclusion, arguing that finance should be addressed under other agenda items.
Ultimately, no agreement could be reached on the GGA. The issue was therefore subject to “rule 16” and passed to COP31 without any agreed text.
In the closing plenary, parties expressed their disappointment with the situation, with AOSIS noting the outcome was “completely unacceptable”.
In a statement, E3G’s Mulio Alvarez said that amid worsening climate impacts, the “rule 16 is more than a procedural outcome: it is a warning sign”.
Beyond the GGA, the adaptation space also includes numerous other negotiations.
Those around the adaptation fund drew particular focus this year, as it is in the process of transitioning to exclusively serve the Paris Agreement. This will allow it to access 5% of the revenues generated by the agreement’s new carbon market under Article 6.4.
A key challenge was the makeup of the fund’s board, which currently includes members from “Annex I” and “non-Annex I” countries. This refers to the division of countries based on their development status in 1992, when the UNFCCC was established.
The Paris Agreement refers instead simply to “developed” and “developing” countries. The concern, observers told Carbon Brief, is that this could open the door for wealthier developing countries to be defined as “developed” – something that some parties oppose.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Qi said that the issue would require a head of delegation or higher to push through an agreement. He added:
“This is such a politically charged issue that concerns the fundamental question of the relationship between the convention and the Paris Agreement.”
Parties failed to come to an agreement on this point, instead deciding to continue discussions at COP31.
Just transition
The agreement to create a “just transition mechanism” was one of the most substantial outcomes of COP30. In Bonn, it took a further step forward.
Dubbed the “Belém-Antalya mechanism for global just transitions” (BAM) by civil society, it is intended to provide a centralised hub to support “just transitions” for workers and communities around the world.
Speaking during a press conference in the second week of SB64, COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago pointed to the mechanism as a key “legacy” of the conference.
However, as work got underway on the just transition work programme (JTWP), where the BAM sits, the focus of negotiations was instead on the “terms of reference” for an upcoming review.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Anabella Rosemberg, senior advisor on just transition at NGO umbrella group Climate Action Network (CAN) International, said that while negotiations got off to a good start, negotiators got “distracted very fast”. She added:
“Basically, over the 10 days of negotiations, a week was just [spent] on an extremely procedural and technical discussion, instead of a conversation on the mechanism.”
Over the first week, parties diverged on the review’s mandate, objective and scope. This latter point includes how the JTWP relates to processes under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Paris Agreement and UN entities.
Observers told Carbon Brief that they did not think the delay in the discussion of the mechanism had been orchestrated by parties to hamper progress, although they did suggest the BAM was not a priority for certain groups.
Going into the second week, with so much time focused on the terms of reference, Chadli Sadorra, senior program staff at the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, told Carbon Brief that whether or not there was enough time to come up with meaningful outcomes on the mechanism was a concern.
However, on 16 June, the co-chairs introduced a draft text with a “non-exhaustive” list on how to take the mechanism forward.
This was divided into sections on context, purpose, functions integration, coordination and coherence, barriers and opportunities, international cooperation, modalities and governance, timelines and links to the JTWP.
Parties, including Latin American countries under AILAC, Brazil, Norway, AOSIS, the African group and others, welcomed the note as the basis of further negotiations. The Arab group pushed back, saying the text did not reflect its priorities.
There were further discussions on key elements, such as AILAC suggesting a review of the timelines. Brazil and others said that the way the BAM operates and is governed should be considered separately, while the African group urged a strengthened focus on international cooperation.
Ultimately, talks were able to move forward substantially.
Civil society representatives also broadly welcomed the draft text. Rosemberg told Carbon Brief that “there’s a whole chunk that is really good”, adding:
“It points to functions that make sense; it’s not rehashing stuff that we have seen forever in the UNFCCC. It’s new, it’s fresh, it’s crisp, it has potential.”
On the penultimate day of the SB64 negotiations, the co-facilitators asked parties to agree on a package of outcomes, including a summary of the fifth JTWP “dialogue”, a placeholder for its next meeting and the terms of reference for the review of the process. It also included a list of items that would need to be agreed as part of developing the BAM.
Several parties said they could agree to the package in the spirit of compromise. This included an invitation to the chairs of the process to continue working on the matter before COP31, in order to try to find agreement on the BAM.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins, a senior campaigner at the charity War on Want, said that lots of important elements remained in the text, albeit in “skeleton form”, including links to financial architecture.
But key questions remain around the details of the BAM, including on the role of non-party stakeholder participants, Huggins added. As such, civil society groups see further meetings on the mechanism, ahead of COP31, as key to allowing it to be adopted in November.
Ultimately, this package of texts was agreed without intervention in the closing plenary of SB64 on 18 June.
Speaking during a press conference that day, attended by Carbon Brief, Rosemberg concluded:
“Watch out, the BAM is coming”.
Climate finance
Delegates spent much of the first week in Bonn debating climate finance outside of formal negotiations, in a series of “workshops” and “dialogues”. Much of their focus was on how to fulfil financial commitments made during previous climate negotiations.
Finance is a core issue at UN climate talks and one that has frequently led to “agenda fights” and delays in recent years.
The major divide is between developing countries that receive climate finance and developed countries that are obliged, under the Paris Agreement, to provide or “mobilise” it.
There was no agenda fight as SB64 kicked off in Bonn. However, finance remained a source of friction across many workstreams, against a difficult global backdrop.
Recent official figures show that climate finance from developed countries reached a record $136.7bn in 2024. Developed countries, therefore, argue that they are raising climate finance in line with their obligations, despite other fiscal strains.
Since 2024, however, aid cuts by major donors – particularly the US – mean public climate spending by developed countries is likely to have fallen substantially. There have also been drops in support for UN climate funds, such as the Green Climate Fund.
Moreover, hardly any developed countries have pledged new finance for 2026 and beyond.
This is in spite of parties agreeing in 2024 on a “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG) of $300bn a year for developing countries by 2035 – largely from developed countries.
Given this, developing countries argue that developed countries are, in fact, shirking their responsibility to scale up their public-finance provision. They say this is vital, especially considering the $300bn goal is already far below the scale needed to tackle climate change.
Isatou Camara, lead climate finance coordinator for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), told Carbon Brief that their adaptation needs depended on securing such funding:
“[Public finance is] oxygen for us, because when we talk about what we need as vulnerable countries, it’s basically enhancing resilience and adaptation.”
At COP30, parties agreed to launch a new two-year “work programme” for countries to discuss these concerns, among others.
This came after a concerted effort, led by the LMDCs and the Arab group, to start a work programme focused exclusively on Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement. This is the part that says developed countries “shall provide” finance – generally taken to mean public spending.
However, developed countries note that the NCQG goal covers a “wide variety of sources”, including the private sector and wealthier developing countries, such as China.
In the end, parties at COP30 compromised on a programme to address Article 9.1 “in the context of Article 9…as a whole” – meaning it could cover all types of finance.
Nevertheless, in submissions ahead of SB64, many developing countries were clear that they wanted the programme to be a “dedicated space” to discuss Article 9.1.
The LMDCs and Arab group even erroneously referred to it simply as the “work programme on Article 9.1” and made it clear that they “do not see [it] as a way of consolidating other agenda items on finance”.
(Some developing-country groups, such as AOSIS, place a lot of emphasis on other aspects of finance, such as quality and accessibility, as well as the need for provision by developed countries.)
In contrast, developed countries, such as the EU, Norway and Canada, said they wanted a broad approach that focuses on “streamlining” the existing climate-finance agenda and “mobilising” finance from various sources.
There were three “engagement workshops” to discuss this new climate-finance work programme at SB64.
Parties remained entrenched in long-held positions, with developed countries happy to keep the focus on climate finance of all kinds, as opposed to public funding.
The G77 and China rejected the “work plan” prepared by the co-chairs and said its focus should be squarely on Article 9.1. Some developing countries argued for “burden sharing agreements” and an “action plan” to compel developed countries to provide more finance.
In order to elevate these issues into formal negotiations, developing countries and civil-society organisations stressed throughout SB64 that the Article 9 work programme should be placed on the agenda at COP31. (A draft version of the agenda for November’s summit did not include it.)
This argument was given more weight when COP30 president Corrêa do Lago used his “authority” to request such an item, in a letter published towards the end of SB64 week one.
When asked why he made this unconventional intervention, Corrêa do Lago told Carbon Brief that it reflected his understanding of what was agreed last year:
“If I believe that we agreed in Belém that this would happen, I think it is normal that, as president of the COP, I request that to the secretariat.”
Nevertheless, his action is not binding and will not, in itself, avert conflict over whether to include the issue on the COP31 agenda. Despite this, the move was celebrated by civil society, with Sehr Raheja, a climate change programme office at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) telling Carbon Brief:
“Developed countries have been resistant to it from the beginning…Drama is going to be there [at COP31], whether we like it or not.”
The SB64 talks also saw the first two-day meeting of the “Veredas dialogue”, another new finance-related process agreed at COP30.
This is a space for parties to discuss Article 2.1c of the Paris Agreement, which concerns making all global financial flows “consistent” with climate goals. Some developing countries, such as the Arab group, have resisted this aspect of negotiations, preferring to keep the focus exclusively on finance from developed countries.
The Veredas dialogue is essentially a continuation of the “Sharm el-Sheikh dialogue” – which ended last year – except with greater focus on real-world implementation.
These discussions saw presentations on various topics, including how Rwanda is aligning its public finance with climate resilience and Norway’s experience with carbon pricing. As part of the dialogue, high-level “Xingu finance talks” will take place later this year.
Finally, the COP30 presidency hosted sessions to discuss the implementation of the “Baku to Belém roadmap”.
As well as the $300bn goal, the NCQG contains a more aspirational target of reaching $1.3tn in annual climate finance by 2035, which parties at COP30 agreed to “urgently advance”. The roadmap is a presidency-led attempt to add substance to the $1.3tn pledge.
In Bonn, parties and experts discussed activities to “focus collective energies” and “gain quick wins”, as well as how to follow up on the roadmap in “mandated workstreams and through the action agenda”.
A summary of the discussion will be produced and used to inform the continued follow-up on the roadmap, over the coming year.
Global stocktake
Years of discussions culminated in the first “global stocktake” (GST) of the Paris Agreement in 2023, which assessed progress towards climate goals and what more needed to be done.
Since then, countries have been engaging in a process known as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) dialogue, which focuses on implementing the GST outcomes.
There were two sessions at SB64 for parties to share experiences and information about how to implement the GST – and barriers they faced – as agreed at COP30.
Interventions from parties such as the EU, Switzerland and Colombia focused on the GST’s “energy package”, contained in paragraph 28 of the text, including “transitioning away from fossil fuels” and “phasing out inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies”.
AOSIS highlighted the recent conference on transitioning away from fossil fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia, as a good example of cooperation to deliver on these outcomes.
Many developing-country parties stressed that they needed more climate finance and other forms of support to carry out GST outcomes. The Philippines, speaking on behalf of the G77 and China, highlighted:
“The persistent gap between the scale of action required to implement GST outcomes…and the scale, quality, accessibility and predictability of support provided.”
Among the groups preferring to keep the focus on finance were those representing major fossil-fuel producers. Saudi Arabia, speaking for the LMDCs, described the dialogue as a “non-prescriptive space with a focus on finance”.
The co-facilitators are now expected to prepare a report that summarises the discussions, without providing guidance.
As the talks came to a close and an overview was presented to attendees by the diplomats leading the discussions, Colombia noted that “transitioning away from fossil fuels” was missing:
“This topic featured prominently in several interventions and was identified by many parties as a key element of the GST outcomes that requires [finance].”
Following this, Saudi Arabia said “cherry-picking” of paragraphs from the GST should be avoided, given it was a “carefully negotiated” package:
“While some parties may choose specific pathways, roadmaps, initiatives, approaches, others are contributing through other alternative approaches – all of which are valid and contribute to the goal of the Paris Agreement.”
(The stocktake calls on all parties to contribute to the entire energy package, including the fossil-fuel transition. Yet Saudi Arabia has consistently argued the package is a menu of options, from which parties can pick and choose.)
Across various rooms in Bonn, talk also turned to the next GST, a two-year process that will begin at COP31 later this year and end in 2028.
The most contentious issue regarding the second GST was whether or not the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will feed directly into it. See: Climate science.
Mitigation work programme
Bonn closed with the mitigation work programme (MWP) – the only formal agenda item specifically about cutting greenhouse gas emissions – failing to reach an agreement. As a result, it was subject to “rule 16”, meaning it was simply pushed to COP31.
The main challenge within negotiations was a divergence between parties wanting the MWP to actively drive more urgent emissions cuts and those who want it to be merely a space for communication.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Kaveh Guilanpour, vice president for international strategies at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), explained:
“Tensions in the MWP go back to when it was adopted at COP27, where some parties wanted it to be a non-negotiated space to exchange ideas and views on how to accelerate mitigation action, while others hope the space could be used for more normative signals on what needs to be done going forward.
“At the heart of this is the fact that NDCs are nationally determined, while the goals of the Paris Agreement are collective in nature.”
One of the main areas of focus in Bonn was the future of the MWP, including its duration, its relationship with other UNFCCC processes and how it should be carried out.
For example, during discussions in the first week, parties disagreed on whether the mandate for the MWP’s work – which refers to “this critical decade” – meant it should continue operation until 2030, or whether this simply related to the urgency of action.
Speaking during a press conference in the second week attended by Carbon Brief, Anne Rasmussen, lead climate negotiator for AOSIS, said that on mitigation:
“We need to move beyond simply exchanging views and focus on how the work programme can support the implementation of GST outcomes, particularly those related to mitigation. These [include] accelerating renewable energy deployment and strengthening dedicated mitigation space beyond 2027.”
Questions of finance also became contentious, as they had across a range of negotiating rooms in Bonn.
During negotiations, some parties highlighted the need to engage with financiers, investors or other avenues, in order to turn MWP discussions into action.
In the second week, the diplomats leading negotiations put together three separate documents to represent the divided discussions: a draft legal text; a note capturing the key parts of the debate; and a “non-exhaustive reflection of the exchange of views”.
Further documents released the day after, with few substantial changes, faced a similar response.
In the afternoon of the final day in Bonn, brief draft conclusions were published. This contained just five points, predominantly focused on the need for continued work on the MWP.
Ultimately, however, parties could not even agree on this minimal document and the MWP was pushed to COP31.
In the closing plenary, a range of parties expressed their “profound disappointment” and reaffirmed their commitment to the MWP process.
Action agenda and new initiatives
COP30 saw an effort by the Brazilian presidency to raise the profile of the “action agenda” – a long-running initiative to mobilise climate action outside the formal UN process.
Hundreds of voluntary climate initiatives have been launched by businesses, local governments and many other actors over the years at COP summits and other international events.
In a bid to turn this into real-world action, the COP30 presidency marshalled these initiatives into six broad themes and compiled them into a five-year plan for “accelerating implementation”.
These plans were intentionally aligned with the goals of the global stocktake, negotiated in 2023, which includes everything from “transitioning away from fossil fuels” to “halting and reversing deforestation”. (See: Global stocktake.)
This work continued at SB64, with UN Climate Change executive secretary Simon Stiell telling participants in his opening speech:
“We hear calls from many to elevate the global climate action agenda – complementing negotiations, bringing together governments, companies, innovators, investors, cities and regions and civil society.”
The Turkish COP31 presidency launched its own “priorities” for the action agenda during the first week of SB64. The most high-profile of these was a goal – yet to be endorsed by national governments – to increase the global share of final energy demand met by electricity from just over 20% today to 35% by 2035.
(Amid soaring fuel prices linked to the Iran war, some governments have already identified electrification as a way to curb their reliance on expensive fossil-fuel imports.)
The Turkish presidency also announced targets to halve the growth in global waste, reduce “energy consumption intensity in the building sector” by 25%, increase the global use of “circular materials” by 15% and “build awareness of the climate crisis” among young people and farmers, all by 2035.
Alongside these goals, the presidency has also announced a “climate implementation bridge”. This was described as an initiative to help developing countries access support and capacity building – but it is not a new climate fund.
(The COP31 action agenda is set to be formally launched at London Climate Action Week, the week after SB64.)
In a press conference announcing these new goals, the Australian “president of negotiations” for COP31, Chris Bowen, made it clear that the negotiations and the action agenda are “separate things” and that the latter could proceed without universal buy-in from every country. He said:
“The action agenda is set by the presidency, the negotiations are steered but are a party-driven process and require consensus.”
COP30 also had also seen the launch of more new presidency-led initiatives that were intended to drive climate action beyond the UN negotiating halls. SB64 provided an opportunity to flesh these out and for parties to provide their views.
One of these initiatives was the “global implementation accelerator”, which was the focus of an event in the first week of the conference.
COP30 and COP31 presidency representatives explained that this would involve providing additional support to three or four “high-impact” climate “solutions” from the action agenda. The goal would be to help parties – on a voluntary basis – as they implement nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and national adaptation plans (NAPs).
Another new presidency initiative was the “Belém mission to 1.5C”, which held a consultation event in Bonn. This has similar objectives to the global implementation accelerator – namely, driving ambition, implementation and investment in nations’ NDCs and NAPs.
The “mission” is gathering inputs from various actors and will use these, alongside various meetings and consultations, to produce a report ahead of COP31.
Some parties used these sessions to make their priorities clear. For example, Saudi Arabia, on behalf of the Arab Group, made statements during both consultations about the importance of carbon-capture technologies. They told the “mission to 1.5C” session:
“International cooperation currently disproportionately emphasises particular solutions, while technologies such as CCUS [carbon capture, utilisation and storage] and CDR [carbon dioxide removal], despite their critical role in IPCC-assessed pathways, remain disproportionately underrepresented.”
This is notable, given the predominance of major oil-and-gas producers in this negotiating bloc and the group’s resistance to efforts to move away from fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia also stressed that these initiatives are voluntary and not connected to UNFCCC processes.
Climate science
Throughout the Bonn talks, there were major disagreements about how climate science should feed into the UN climate process.
Parties traded accusations of “misinformation” and oversimplifying science. There were also disputes about the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C temperature goal and the role of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
This came to a head when a press briefing was assembled with representatives from the EU, Switzerland and various developing countries to denounce “coordinated attacks” on science by “fossil-fuel interests”.
When asked which parties were behind these “attacks”, Sivendra Michael, chief negotiator for Fiji, told Carbon Brief:
“It is the usual suspects that seek to block progress…We are seeing efforts to remove references to the IPCC and the 1.5C temperature limit.”
A negotiator from one of the countries in the press conference later elaborated, telling Carbon Brief that Saudi Arabia and India were among those “undermining” climate science.
They also told Carbon Brief that Saudi Arabia had started referencing a Paris Agreement target of limiting warming to 2C – failing to mention the 1.5C component altogether. Saudi Arabia, a major oil-and-gas producer, has long opposed the 1.5C goal.
(The Paris Agreement technically has a single temperature target of “well-below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C”.)
All economies face very steep emissions cuts if the world is to meet the 1.5C target and this could have major societal impacts, especially for emerging economies with fossil-fuel industries.
However, small islands and climate-vulnerable states frame warming beyond 1.5C as an existential threat.
Anne Rasmussen, lead negotiator of AOSIS, told Carbon Brief that they were concerned about the “attempt to delink any relevance of the 1.5C” across several tracks, including the JTWP and the MWP.
As at COP30, differences of opinion were most evident in negotiations on “research and systematic observation”, where parties discussed scientific inputs into UN climate talks.
The EU was among parties voicing concerns about “misinformation” and the importance of 1.5C. Saudi Arabia and India were among those arguing against references to “misinformation and disinformation”, as well as 1.5C.
(There was also some debate about the inclusion of references to El Niño and climate “tipping points”. Both were opposed by some large, developing countries, with India and Saudi Arabia arguing there were “varying perspectives” on tipping points science.)
Dr Kate Dooley, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne who followed the Bonn negotiations, told Carbon Brief that the accusations levelled by some parties in the press conference were oversimplified. She said:
“We’ve got both sides finger-pointing at each other – the EU and Switzerland pointing the finger at large, developing countries and saying: ‘What you’re doing is climate denial.’ And it’s not.”
There is growing acceptance that the world is likely to breach 1.5C. If that happens, the “overshoot” could be temporary if there is mass deployment of carbon removal technologies and tree-planting to suck carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.
As ever, this raises questions as to who will be responsible for cutting emissions and for the mass deployment of CO2 removal – and when and where these actions should take place.
Dooley said that “1.5C is the temperature goal and we need all hands on deck to achieve that”, but there was nothing wrong with “interrogating the risks of mitigation pathways and trying to make sure those risks are minimised”.
Large, developing nations argue on the basis of “equity” that they should have more leeway, whereas developed countries bear significant historical responsibility for climate change and that, as a result, they should cut emissions further and faster in line with the 1.5C goal.
Moreover, they argue that developed countries have failed to provide sufficient climate finance and technological support to help developing countries cut emissions.
Responding to this idea, Fiji negotiator Michael told the press briefing there would be “no equity for the most vulnerable” if 1.5C is breached:
“There is this growing narrative that science and equity are in competition…We reject this notion.”
Saudi Arabia and India were also prominent in questioning the role of the IPCC – considered the world’s most authoritative voice on climate science – in the UN process.
Some Indian researchers have been vocal in arguing that the scenarios assessed by the IPCC place an unfair burden on developing countries.
There was also a wider conversation about IPCC timelines in Bonn. Many parties, including the EU, AOSIS and South Africa, argued that the panel’s “seventh assessment report” (AR7) should be brought forward so the “best available science” can feed into the second “global stocktake” in UN climate talks, which is set to conclude in 2028. (See: Global stocktake.)
A group of countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, China, Kenya and Russia, have pushed back against any effort to accelerate the report timing. As a result, for five consecutive IPCC meetings, countries have failed to agree on the AR7 timeline.
These debates spilled over into SB64 talks, with the same parties arguing against alignment with the second GST. Again, these countries often make arguments on the basis of equity, stating that accelerating the process would disadvantage developing-country scientists.
Fossil fuels
Fossil fuels were not an official part of the negotiating agenda in Bonn, but countries nevertheless discussed them throughout the talks.
At COP30, dozens of nations had backed a “roadmap” to “transition away” from fossil fuels, but ultimately strong opposition meant it did not end up in the formal text.
Instead, countries accepted COP30 president Corrêa do Lago’s compromise offer to develop “roadmaps” outside the formal UN regime, including one for fossil-fuel transition and another on ending deforestation.
So far, 21 countries and negotiating groups have submitted their views to help shape the informal fossil-fuel roadmap. With the exception of Russia, none of the countries that reportedly opposed a formal roadmap at COP30 have had their say.
(There has been a similar call for input from parties for the deforestation roadmap, with 22 submissions so far.)
In the first week of Bonn, the COP30 president hosted a 90-minute session to discuss the fossil-fuel issue in person.
Corrêa do Lago presented progress on developing the roadmap, placing it in the context of implementing the energy-related outcomes from the first global stocktake. (See: Global stocktake.)
Some parties, including small-island nations and Switzerland on behalf of the Environmental Integrity Group (EIG) , expressed interest in carrying the roadmap discussion into the formal process – so it ended up as more than just “a document”.
Meanwhile, groups representing big fossil-fuel producers, such as the Arab group and the LMDCs, did not speak up at all.
Fossil fuels were also discussed in other parts of SB64, notably in the GST dialogue. Numerous nations pointed to the success of the recent “transitioning away from fossil fuels” conference in Santa Marta, Colombia.
Cosima Cassel, climate diplomacy lead at E3G, told a press conference on this topic that Santa Marta was an example of the climate regime “evolv[ing]”, with “coalitions of the willing” coming forward with solutions to move away from fossil fuels.
Trade dialogues
The first-ever dialogue on climate change and trade was held during the first week of negotiations. Parties approached it with a “pragmatic” tone, despite clear tensions, according to thinktank E3G.
Created as part of the “global mutirão” at COP30 in Brazil last year, this was the first of three dialogues that will be held at Bonn intersessional meetings between 2026 and 2028.
Opening the session, COP30 president André Corrêa do Lago highlighted the need to make trade work “as an engine of sustainable development”.
The session began with presentations from the World Trade Organization, the International Trade Centre and UN Trade and Development, which highlighted the potential for trade to contribute to countries’ climate objectives.
However, as parties moved into the discussion portion of the day, many developing nations drew attention to growing concerns that trade measures are creating burdens and barriers for them.
The discussion was organised around three questions: how trade can support climate action; how climate action can avoid adverse impacts on sustainable development; and how international cooperation can address the “trade-climate interface”.
Broadly, developing-country groups argued that the use of trade-related climate measures raises compliance costs, restricts market access and does not align with principles of “equity” and “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities”.
For example, the Arab group pointed to research by the International Monetary Fund, which it said found that the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) could generate “welfare gains” for developed countries, while imposing “losses” on developing countries.
Meanwhile, the LMDCs described unilateral trade-related climate measures as:
“Effectively extraterritorial regulatory projection by those with dominant market power and greater historical responsibility [for global warming] onto those with fewer resources and less historical responsibility.”
Developed-country groups pushed back against these criticisms, arguing that they were legitimate approaches to climate “externalities”. The EU said:
“If we disregard sustainability considerations, negative environmental externalities can emerge and lead to dependencies that undermine efforts to protect the environment and the climate.”
Others, such as AILAC and South Korea, focused on improving fairness and transparency in climate-related trade measures.
In a statement, Jordan Dilworth, policy advisor for climate diplomacy and geopolitics at E3G, said that despite the tensions, parties did come prepared to engage:
“Many expected the first trade and climate dialogue to be a showdown, but parties resisted trading blows and instead engaged constructively despite entrenched differences. The test now is for the chairs to ensure that parties feel their positions are being adequately addressed in the next round of dialogues.”
The diplomats running the talks will now consider the interventions and submissions made by parties in the dialogue, before determining the next steps.
They said they would prepare an “informal note under their own authority and with no legal status”, as a record of the first dialogue.
Trade also raised its head in the just transition work programme, with groups such as G77 and China opposing “restrictive” trade measures, while others, such as the UK, argued that the topic of trade does not fall within the mandate of the workstream.
This mirrored divisions seen at COP30, SB62 and other UNFCCC meetings. (See: Just transition work programme.)
COP reform
Following on from COP30, there were continued discussions on the future of the UNFCCC process and potential for reform, although it was less of a hot-button topic.
Much of this fell within negotiations on “arrangements for intergovernmental meetings”, focused on the organisation of COP31, improving efficiency and observer engagement.
Negotiations over the course of the two weeks in Bonn saw parties disagree over issues such as imposing conditions on proposals for new agenda items, the opportunities for parties to engage in consultations, budgetary implications and more.
Ultimately, a final text was agreed on the penultimate day of Bonn.
Parties also negotiated on “cooperation between other international organisations”, which relates to coordinating the work of UN treaties on climate change, nature and desertification.
While this agenda item has existed for over 20 years, it has previously been limited to the publication of an annual report in Bonn.
At COP30, however, it was reinvigorated following a push at the Bonn sessions in June 2025, ultimately being included on the agenda at a COP for the first time in 19 years.
The workstream drew focus at COP30 amid the wider calls for reform of the COP process.
Its inclusion in the agenda at SB64 followed a report from UN scientific panel on nature research, IPBES, on the nexus between biodiversity and other workstreams, which found that countries are wasting $10-25tn annually by dealing with interconnected crises within silos, instead of taking advantage of synergies.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Bethan Laughlin, senior policy specialist at the Zoological Society of London, highlighted that countries now have to produce dozens of reports across the three UN conventions. She added:
“The evidence is clear that siloed decision-making is costing countries trillions per year. To tackle the scale of the climate and ecological crisis, we can no longer act as if these issues are separate from one another.
“Already existing mechanisms, such as the Joint Liaison Group, need to be strengthened, but we also need innovative approaches that will aid countries in scaling up synergistic approaches.”
Ocean dialogue
During the first week at Bonn, stakeholders and delegates took part in the “ocean and climate change dialogue”.
This focused on ocean-based priorities in countries’ “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs), access to finance and aligning international climate and biodiversity efforts relating to oceans.
The dialogue built on the “blue NDC challenge” launched by Brazil and France in 2025, with the goal of as many countries as possible incorporating the ocean into their pledges.
Speaking to Carbon Brief, Micheline Khan, senior associate for ocean climate at thinktank the World Resources Institute (WRI), explained that since it was launched at COP25, the dialogue has “achieved important milestones” in the integration of the ocean across the work of the UNFCCC. This included helping to move from ad-hoc inclusion of the topic to a “growing political recognition of ocean language”.
Representatives for both sides of the joint COP31 presidency – Turkey and Australia – spoke during the first day of the ocean dialogue at SB64.
Khan added that the Turkish presidency has “defined the ocean as a key priority within their agenda”, providing political signalling that could help elevate the topic.
But more still needs to be done, Khan said:
“The central challenge is no longer whether ocean action belongs in climate plans – it does. But whether countries have the governance, data, technical capacity and investment pipelines to implement what they have already committed to.”
For more on the ocean dialogue, see the 19 June 2016 edition of Debriefed.
Road to COP31
Attention now turns to COP31, which will be held in the resort city of Antalya, Turkey.
Unusually, the COP presidency is being shared, with Turkey hosting the summit, but Australia serving as “president of negotiations”.
This was a compromise landed on at COP30, after parties failed to agree on a single presidency following more than three years of dispute.
(COP32 will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2027. It will be the first-ever COP hosted by one of the least-developed countries.)
COP31 is being promoted as an “implementation COP”, helping to “close the gap between multilateral commitments and real-world delivery”, according to its website.
However, the fraught negotiations in Bonn, including the lack of progress on key elements, mean the future effectiveness of climate summits is increasingly under question.
In his closing statement at Bonn, UN Climate Change executive secretary Simon Stiell urged countries to bring ministers together as soon as possible, “particularly on the thorniest issues,” to allow compromise to be found ahead of Antalya. He added:
“In some negotiating rooms, we’ve heard a familiar tendency towards you-first-ism: Groups refusing to deliver commitments or allow the process to move forward unless others go first. This is a recipe for gridlock when we need all negotiating tracks to be moving in the fast lane.”
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 20-28 June 2026 | London climate action week, London, UK |
| September 2026 | Climate week, New York City, US |
| 8-22 September | UN general assembly (UNGA81), New York City, US |
| 19-30 October 2026 | UN biodiversity summit COP17,, Yerevan, Armenia |
| 9-20 November 2026 | Global implementation accelerator – second information session |
| During Katowice Committee meeting, 2026 | Dialogue on the impact of response measures |
| 9-20 November 2026 | COP31, Antalya, Turkey |
The post Bonn climate talks: Key outcomes from the June 2026 UN climate conference appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Bonn climate talks: Key outcomes from the June 2026 UN climate conference
Last week, more than 260 researchers convened in Milan to discuss the opportunities, challenges and risks involved in scaling “carbon dioxide removal” (CDR) to help curb climate change.
The conference – held on the campus of the Politecnico di Milano – is the fourth in a series, with previous editions held in Oxford, UK in 2024, and Gothenburg, Sweden in 2018 and 2022.
A broad range of academics – from forests, oceans and soils experts through to social and political scientists – discussed the co-benefits and trade-offs involved in drawing down CO2 from the atmosphere at scale, as well as the ways policy could drive CDR deployment.
Dr Soheil Shayegh, director of the industrial and planetary carbon cycle programme at the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change (CMCC), told Carbon Brief the idea behind the conference was to “bring scientists together to convey a message to policymakers about where the technology stands”.
He continued: “We should be very clear that there still are huge uncertainties about the effectiveness of lots of this CDR technology – are they marketable or not? But what is clear for us is the need for CDR.”
Dr Morgan Edwards, the lead author of the recently published “state of CDR report”, told delegates that meeting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C goal by the end of this century would require CDR to “scale up rapidly” from 2.2bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2 per year) today to 8.8GtCO2 by 2050.
She added: “We need to see an upscaling in ambition over the next few years to get on a track consistent with these long-term scenarios.”
Below, Carbon Brief summarises the key talking points at the conference.
Overshoot
The removal of carbon from the atmosphere is seen as crucial to compensate for the emissions from human activities that are difficult to decarbonise – for instance, those generated in aviation and agriculture.
This, scientists have emphasised, must come in addition to steep emissions cuts.
CDR has another role, which is as a mechanism to return average global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, in the likely event that the Paris Agreement’s temperature target is exceeded.
The Milan conference comes after 2024 was the first single year to breach the 1.5C target and as scientists have projected that the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C target – typically interpreted in terms of a 20-year average – could be exceeded by the end of this decade.
Prof Sabine Fuss, head of research department at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) told Carbon Brief the likely breach of the 1.5C limit means the CDR research agenda was getting “even bigger” as the world would need to contend with “even larger scales” of CDR. She added:
“Some of the things that we were worrying about already in a net-zero context are getting even more pertinent. Also, [we need to think about] what will happen under climate change. A lot of [CDR approaches] may not be super resilient if we’re facing higher temperatures and more disturbances. Think about forests.”
Prof Massimo Tavoni, scientific director of the RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment, described the prospect of returning temperatures to 1.5C with CDR as the “biggest Earth restoration project ever”.
Speaking in the plenary, Tavoni said the concepts of “overshoot” and “CDR” were “closely connected, but not the same thing”.
Broadly speaking, there have been three “phases” of overshoot research, Tavoni said:
- 1995 to 2005: a period where overshoot was not “seriously considered”, he argued. It was during this period that researchers first explored scenarios that would “now be classified as overshoot pathways” and “set out CO2 removal as a mechanism” for stabilising the climate, he said.
- 2005 to 2015: the age when “overshoot was discovered”, according to Tavoni. At this time, he said, “[climate] ambition was rising and emissions were also rising, which led to the incorporation of CDR in the models”.
- 2015 to the present day: an “age of reckoning” where overshoot has become “formally entangled” in the scenarios created by the climate community due to the “absolute need for overshoot and CDR to achieve [temperature] targets in the face of growing CO2 concentration”.
Tavoni noted that all of the new emissions scenarios set out ahead of the seventh phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP7) – unveiled in April – exceeded the 1.5C limit.
(CMIP is a global initiative that coordinates the work of dozens of climate modelling centres around the world, recommending a common set of model experiments that can collectively shed light on the climate and how it could change.)
Half of the CMIP7 scenarios, Tavoni said, first “overshoot” the 1.5C goal and then “return back”.
The indicative global temperature rise under these seven scenarios is shown in the chart on the right below.
(For more on CMIP7 and the emissions scenarios, see Carbon Brief’s recent guest post).
Tavoni noted that there was no “significant relation” across the scenario database between the cumulative CDR levels a scenario assumes and the level of temperature overshoot it would likely cause.
This, he said, is because “many other factors” contribute to CDR uptake, including the policy environment, progress on emissions reduction in different countries and decisions about what types of emissions might constitute “hard-to-abate” or “residual”. He added:
“You can have scenarios with no ‘negative emissions’, but still a lot of CDR for compensating residual emissions.”
A number of sessions at the conference looked at Earth-system response to overshoot pathways with large-scale CDR.
For example, CMCC’s Dr Momme Butenschön presented research looking at how the oceans would respond to “global net-negative emissions” – a hypothetical situation where more carbon is being removed from the atmosphere than is being added through emissions.
He explained that model runs to 2100 show that a decline in global surface temperature would fail to reduce temperatures in the upper layer of the ocean for at least 30-40 years. Ocean temperatures would “stay flat” during this period due to the ocean’s inertia, he said.
The response to negative emissions further down in the ocean would be even slower, he explained to Carbon Brief:
“If you go to the mesopelagic zone – the twilight zone 200-1,000 metres beneath the surface – the ocean will continue to warm and then, after some years, it will flatten out again. [Its temperature] will not go down.
“And, if you go to the deeper ocean, everything – acidification, deoxygenation, warming – they all continue on their path. So the deep ocean doesn’t even realise you are doing negative emissions.”
The researchers behind the project – named RESCUE – have asked for an extension to run the models up to 2300 so they can better understand what the “long-term reaction” of the ocean to negative emissions technologies would be.
Forests
Speaking in a plenary session, Dr Edwards – assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin and lead author of the 2026 state of CDR report – explained that the “vast majority of CDR that is happening today is so-called ‘conventional’ CDR – so, primarily removal of CO2 from forests”.
Edwards was summarising some of the findings of the latest “state of CDR” report, which says that, at present, 99.9% of existing CDR is “conventional”, land-based techniques such as tree-planting.
The world’s forests currently remove 2.2GtCO2 per year, equivalent to around 5% of gross global CO2 emissions, according to the report. It also notes that “high ambition climate scenarios” will require all forms of CDR to reach a median value of 3.9GtCO2 by 2035 and 8.8GtCO2 by 2050.
Edwards said that conventional CDR methods “tend to be well established and have relatively high readiness levels”. Typically, they also have lower costs – “in some cases less than $10 per tonne of CO2” – than “novel” methods.
Experts pointed out repeatedly throughout the conference that CDR methods would need to be diversified for CDR to achieve levels required to meet climate goals, given land-use constraints and concerns around the permanence of carbon stored in forests.
CMCC’s Shayegh said the world would need a “portfolio” of solutions, given the “big trade-offs” involved in different CDR approaches. He explained:
“For forests, for example, to get the scale you need, you have to have lots of managed land for CDR, which means interfering with agriculture. So you will compete with food and biofuel – and it’s not a very easy or efficient way of creating jobs.”
In a research session, Dr Clemens Schwingshackl from LMU Munich noted that CDR from afforestation and reforestation compensated for about 6% of human fossil-fuel emissions between 2014-23.
However, he said that there was “large uncertainty” in calculations of forest-based CDR. Current bookkeeping models and national greenhouse gas inventories – two key methods for estimating levels of forest-based CDR – have uncertainty rates of 20% and 30%, respectively.
“Missing processes” in bookkeeping models include the impact of disturbances on forests, such as fire, as well as information about the effectiveness of afforestation and reforestation projects, he said.
Dr Giacomo Grassi, scientific officer at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, noted the differences in the ways “conventional” CDR levels are calculated by countries, the “state of CDR” report and by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
CDR, he said, “excludes” CO2 uptake that is not directly caused by human activities. However, separating direct human effects on land from indirect human-caused effects – such as the impacts of climate change – cannot be achieved through observations alone and instead relies on models and model assumptions. He explained:
“Because national greenhouse gas inventories typically rely on observations, they include a broader [human-caused] land carbon sink than what is counted as CDR. As a result, conventional land-based CDR cannot be fully tracked in these inventories.”
Grassi illustrated the different approaches to defining CDR by showing the graphic below.
Barbara Saget from the Paris School of Economics presented the findings of an exercise where researchers used a “dynamic social planner model” to understand the optimum timing and scaling of nature-based and technological CDR and the extent to which net-zero targets can rely on nature-based CDR.
The research showed that nature-based CDR was needed in the medium-term to offset hard-to-abate emissions and limit reliance on more expensive solutions.
However, the model results showed that, as forests grow, an increasing share of captured CO2 is used to compensate for carbon produced during forest disturbances, rather than human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, in the EU, the issue of tight land availability restricts the expansion of forest-based removals. She explained:
“This theoretical model shows that forests are not reliable in the long-run to offset the hard-to-abate emissions, first because of the release of emissions – this reversal risk – but also because of land constraints. So, we need to rely on technological CDR to compensate for these remaining emissions.”
Other forms of CDR
Other research sessions focused on the challenges, uncertainties and opportunities in scaling in other CDR techniques, sometimes referred to as “novel”, “engineered” or “technological” CDR.
In the opening plenary, Edwards noted that, despite making up less than 0.1% of current levels CDR, “novel” solutions were “growing rapidly”.
She added that “the major scale up of novel CDR that we might need to meet climate goals will likely require substantial cost reductions for these technologies”.
Ashwin Murphy, negative emissions fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, explained the various international agreements governing “marine CDR” – a category that includes ocean alkalinity enhancement and direct ocean capture. He said:
“As much promise as marine CDR holds, it also holds the potential for harm, environmental, social and otherwise. The laws that apply to CDR as a whole are unclear, because there are older laws that have been taken out and forced into the CDR framework and that means that they often don’t fit right.
“When a CDR project takes place and for whatever reason there’s an issue – whether it’s environmental harm or otherwise – liability questions are complicated, and there’s not often a clear answer as to what happens next.”
Oumaima Rhalem of Utrecht University described research which looked at the potential of biochar as a CDR technology. She said the findings show that biochar’s potential to tackle climate change depended on a region’s agricultural soils and biomass resources.
In the longer-run, however, she noted that carbon pricing would influence the geography of biochar deployment and would eventually shift biochar from an “agricultural technology” to a “carbon-removal technology”.
Dr Christian Rischer from the Kiel Institute presented findings of a literature review on the CDR potential of blue-carbon ecosystems, such as mangroves, salt marshes, sea grasses and macroalgae.
He said that “low ranges of estimates” suggest these ecosystems currently sequester around 270m tonnes of carbon per year and have a “mitigation potential” of up to 448m tonnes of carbon per year 2050.
Meanwhile, Dr Leon Stephan, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research presented the results of a review of the scientific and “grey” literature – which includes reports, white papers and other evaluations – on monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of CDR up to 2023.
He noted an “exponential growth” in the MRV literature, with two-thirds of the 184 publications assessed focused on “conventional” CDR approaches, such as afforestation and deforestation. On the other hand, he said, marine CDR, DACCS and bioenergy and carbon capture and storage (BECCS) were “rarely studied” in the MRV literature. The analysis also showed that terminology and definitions were used inconsistently, he said.
The literature focused largely on the quantification of MRV, followed by monitoring and removal quality, he added, noting that there was “very little” on governance of solutions.
The researchers also conducted an analysis of 60 CDR certification methodologies used to issue credits for 11 CDR methods in the voluntary and compliance carbon markets.
IPCC CDR methodology report
The conference comes as the IPCC gears up to publish a methodology report on CDR technologies in 2027.
The report will be produced by the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, the group responsible for the internationally-agreed methodologies used for countries’ calculation of greenhouse gas emissions and removals.
The European Commission’s Grassi noted the report aims “to provide a consistent methodology that allows countries to report greenhouse gas emissions removal under the UNFCCC [UN Framework Convention on Climate Change]”.
Dr Oliver Geden, senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) and Working Group III vice-chair for the IPCC’s seventh assessment cycle, tells Carbon Brief the report will bring together experts on CDR methods, as well as specialists on compiling inventories.
He said the methodology report differed from previous climate inventory reports, given that many of the solutions it would be drawing up guidelines for do not yet exist at scale:
“If you look into the guidelines of established processes, like emissions from gasoline use…you don’t have to measure the emissions, you just have statistics about the activity and then you have an emissions factor. It’s an established process.
“The problem with the methodology report is that it is very unusual that you try to regulate things that are not really there yet…So, it can be problematic to come up with ‘standard removal factors’.”
Nevertheless, he said the report was a “start” and signalled that policymakers had started to take CDR beyond forestry seriously.
He added that it will “need to be reworked constantly because experience with what these methods deliver, and under which circumstances, may change”.
Policy
A significant tranche of the conference was focused on how policy could drive uptake of carbon removal solutions.
Speaking in a plenary, Geden presented a table from the “state of CDR” report, which sets out three types of policy that can drive uptake of CDR.
Geden said that, at present, there was a “lack of robust demand signals” for CDR. This includes measures such as binding targets, government procurement initiatives and tax incentives for buyers.
The state of CDR report notes that the 140 countries around the world that have announced net-zero targets – including virtually all of the world’s major emitters have “implicitly included a role for CDR in their climate plans”.
However, this does not always translate into measures specifically designed to scale up CDR. Only the EU has adopted a binding, quantified removals target into law – namely, the goal to reach 310m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (GtCO2e) of annual net removals in the land sector by 2030.
In general, conventional CDR is the main focus of policy, according to the state of CDR report, with various governments focusing on tree planting to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere.
Speaking in a plenary at the conference, Fabien Ramos, carbon removal lead at the European Commission, detailed the way the bloc was incorporating carbon removals into its policy, both through its headline carbon targets and via the EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS).
Ramos said that “carbon removal would have a significant role in the ETS in the future”, noting that the EU will need “lots of carbon removal after 2030” to achieve its 2050 net-zero goal.
Geden told Carbon Brief that net-negative emissions would be the “next frontier for European countries to commit to” if overshoot scenarios were to be successfully realised:
“If you talk about exceeding 1.5C and returning, and you need net-negative [emissions] globally. You don’t get to net-negative globally if nobody even plans to go net-negative individually…Currently, only Denmark has a net-negative target right now. Others will have to follow.”
Lucia Dora Simonelli, from US-based non-profit Carbon Removal Standards Initiative, said it would be important to establish how to “weave” the carbon removal process into existing policies. She said:
“This is not about creating a new CDR policy. This is not about creating climate policy. It’s about truly leveraging existing policy infrastructure.”
PIK’s Fuss similarly told Carbon Brief that one of her key takeaways from the conference was the need to “expand the carbon lens and see what other opportunities we have to mainstream CDR into other policy agendas – so, looking at benefits, for instance, in terms of health or adaptation”.
Dr Steve Smith from the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise & Environment told Carbon Brief:
“If CDR is to scale to gigatonne levels – as indicated by nearly all global pathways to the Paris Agreement goals – then governments will likely need to introduce markets to create demand for CDR or obligations for it to happen.
“CDR is a public good – like our current waste management systems for sewage – and it’s highly unlikely to happen at that scale through voluntary action alone.”
Societal buy-in
A number of delegates pointed to the need to build societal demand and acceptance for CDR technologies.
Dr Livia Fritz from the University of Geneva presented results of a survey of more than 10,000 people in six countries, focused on three CDR approaches: DACCS, BECCS and enhanced rock weathering. Each respondent was assigned one technology and asked to weigh in on five imagined scenarios of how the solutions would be implemented.
The exercise found that support for CDR hinges on taking “procedural and distributive” fairness “seriously” and opening up planning processes to public and expert scrutiny, she said. It also found that benefit-sharing, as well as not-for-profit arrangements “consistently increase” public support for CDR across all countries and technologies.
Speaking in a plenary, Dr Holly Buck from the University of Buffalo discussed the cultural shift required to enable overshoot scenarios. She explained that a national survey exploring US public opinion about decarbonisation and climate policies – including CDR – had revealed that many members of the US public see the concept of a return to 1.5C from above as “fantastical and implausible”. She said:
“Its not just about social support or acceptance or licence. This sort of industry really requires an active demand or desire for it. It’s not enough to just tolerate [CDR]. It’s not going to work unless there’s a wish that’s felt.”
The post Experts: Why carbon removal needs a ‘major scale up’ to return warming to 1.5C appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Experts: Why carbon removal needs a ‘major scale up’ to return warming to 1.5C
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