Bonn climate talks stall over money, ramping up pressure on COP28
Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) looks on during the opening session at the UNFCCC SB58 Bonn Climate Change Conference on June 05, 2023 in Bonn, Germany.
Negotiators departed the United Nations campus in Bonn, Germany this week with a palpable sense of frustration over key decarbonization issues, such as climate finance and the pace of carbon pollution cuts.
The Bonn Climate Change Conference, which wrapped late Thursday, is designed to prepare decisions for adoption at the COP28 summit in the United Arab Emirates later this year. It is widely regarded as a mid-way check on how talks are progressing ahead of the world's biggest annual international climate conference.
For many at the two-week-long event, the lack of progress on issues such as climate finance and the pace of cuts in carbon pollution left a lot to be desired.
"Progress was underwhelming on nearly every front, with one main culprit: money," said David Waskow, international climate director at World Resources Institute, a global non-profit organization.
"Discussions on the first-ever Global Stocktake became gridlocked over how to incorporate finance and support," Waskow said. "This adds another obstacle to leveraging the Global Stocktake to mobilize transformational actions out of COP28 to curb emissions, boost resilience and deliver more finance."
The UAE, the third-largest oil-producing member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, will host the COP28 summit from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12.
Viewed as one of the most significant climate conferences since the landmark Paris Agreement, the Dubai summit will see the U.N. publish a global stocktake on tackling the climate emergency — the first since the Paris accord in 2015.
In Bonn, however, low-income countries were left deeply frustrated that funds pledged to them to implement their climate plans had not yet materialized.
WRI's Waskow said that, while the thorny issue of climate finance was not on the official agenda, "it clearly cast a shadow over the negotiations."
Source: CNBC
