by Tony La Viña, Ally Munda, Jayvy Gamboa, Gab Mesina, Jan Cherome Sison

The mid-year technical negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are underway in Bonn, Germany, from June 16 to 26. SB62, is the 62nd Session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI). These two bodies constitute the technical and operational backbone of the UNFCCC, convening twice yearly. The SBs provide technical expertise and recommendations to the governing bodies of COP, informing the negotiations process and climate discussions. SBSTA brings scientific expertise from sources like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to the policy table, while SBI assesses the implementation of the Convention, Kyoto Protocol, and Paris Agreement. Both bodies also work in tandem on cross-cutting issues within both their expertise. This year, adaptation is expected to heavily feature on the agenda, reflecting the little attention it has received in recent years despite the escalating reality of climate impacts.

Thousands of representatives from State Parties, academia, civil society, youth, and the private sector are expected to attend, contributing to a process where climate policy must be informed by climate science and technical expertise. Manila Observatory’s Klima Center will be actively participating as non-Party observers, monitoring key workstreams on loss and damage, just transition, the Global Stocktake (GST), and mitigation.

An Inherited Agenda

The path to SB62 has been shaped significantly by the outcomes and absences from previous negotiating sessions and the difficulties multilateralism as a whole has faced.

The provisional agenda for SB62 is largely comprised of critical issues carried over from previous, often inconclusive, negotiations, including COP29 in Baku and SB60 in 2024. These include finalizing modalities for a new dialogue designed to support the implementation of the first GST under the Paris Agreement, as well as addressing the procedural and logistical elements essential for the GST process. Delegates will also review the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM), consider the joint annual report of the WIM Executive Committee and the Santiago Network, and assess progress in the formulation and implementation of national adaptation plans.

Beyond these carry-over items, SB62 also aims to make headway on key work programmes, including mitigation and just transition. These work programmes focus on defining pathways and establishing mechanisms for emission reductions and ensuring an equitable, inclusive shift to low-carbon economies.

A major agenda item for SB62 is discussions on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) framework. Finding its origins within the Paris Agreement, the GGA is an integral and complementary pillar to mitigation efforts, representing the international commitment to address the global challenge of adaptation through sustainable development and appropriate local and global responses. In COP27, the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda was developed to create a framework for its implementation, outlining measurable targets and aiming to address the adaptation finance gap. The framework identified seven thematic and four iterative targets, guiding global efforts across critical sectors such as water, food, health, and ecosystems, while emphasizing the continuous cycle of assessment, planning, implementation, and learning. The multi-year process of the GGA hopes to achieve completion in 2025. The core purpose of the GGA is to use measurable indicators of action to strengthen resilience, enhance adaptive capacities, and reduce vulnerabilities to the devastating and escalating effects of climate change.

The Mitigation Work Programme (MWP) faced significant impasses in previous negotiations, with Parties sharply divided on how exactly we can align future Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with the ambitious 1.5°C temperature goal. At COP29 in Baku, comprehensive resolutions on both the MWP and the GST were largely postponed. Additionally, While the Loss and Damage Fund had been operationalized at COP28, commitments to it remained insufficient during the Baku session.

As we wait for the opening of the session, the ambitious proposed agenda looks ripe to set participants up for two difficult weeks of negotiations. The progress to be won, or passed, over the next two weeks will directly inform the negotiations in Belém, Brazil later this year in November.

Baku To Belém: Compromises and Promises

Negotiations in SB62 are expected to continue the struggle of trying to operationalize the technical and procedural aspects of the Paris Agreement’s Articles for both finance and individual Party commitments to emission reductions. This difficulty is evident as critical agenda items continue to be passed from COPs to SBs. Mechanisms of Article 6 and long-term financial support for mitigation, adaptation, and particularly loss and damage, remain critical points of contention between nations. Without swift and decisive financial commitments, the ongoing negotiations on funding threaten to impede the entire climate movement.

A major, recurring bottleneck issue in negotiations are the specific obligations to act. Significantly the outstanding issue of the synchronization of timelines between the GST and the IPCC for reporting and assessment needs to be addressed. Nations are obligated under Paris to submit their NDCs for emissions reductions every five-years and these reports are factored into the GST, which is the method by which these collective steps are periodically measured, rated, and accounted for, evaluating global progress towards the Agreement’s long-term goals. NDCs are then to be adjusted based on the GST. However, many nations missed the February deadline for submitting their revisited and revised NDCs, a vital step for increasing global ambition. While the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, AR6, coincided with the first GST in 2023, aligning the current IPCC report and future IPCC assessment cycles with the GST’s five-year timeline is proving difficult. Scientists and policymakers from developing countries have raised that a compressed timeline for the IPCC reports to align with the GST could impede inclusivity due to capacity gaps. Based on the findings of the first GST, the world is definitely not on track and the growing gap between ambition and action will, again, require massive funding.

Negotiations for the financial aspects of climate action are framed by the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC). This principle acknowledges that industrialized and developed countries, having historically benefited from the use of the Global South’s labor and natural resources and their disproportionate contribution to the accumulated atmospheric carbon, bear a distinct obligation to provide climate financing to the Global South. The Paris Agreement and international law has answered, through CBDR-RC, the question of who should foot the bill. But it’s obvious that things are not as simple and comity between nations hasn’t allowed for developing nations to demand what should be due them. Settling on the amount of money is guided by science but how it should be delivered and by who, these are much more difficult agreements to reach.

The context for current finance debates is shaped by past unfulfilled pledges. An earlier politically acceptable compromise of $100 billion annually by 2020 remained largely unmet for over a decade, finally achieved only once in 2022. This consistent shortfall has eroded confidence in international obligations and highlighted a painful reality: the climate risk-based financial requirements of developing nations are growing, yet global support is critically lacking. The gap may soon become insurmountable. In response to this persistent finance gap, COP29, dubbed the “finance COP,” achieved significant outcomes by agreeing on the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for climate finance, setting a goal of at least $300 billion annually by 2035. Crucially, COP29 also launched the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to $1.3T” — an ambitious initiative designed to scale up overall finance to meet the estimated $1.3 trillion annually needed for comprehensive climate action. This roadmap is intended to bridge the period between COP29 and COP30 in Belém aiming to translate the urgent financial needs into actionable strategies for increasing flows to developing countries.

However, despite these developments, the NCQG and the roadmap’s approach have drawn considerable criticism. Its proposed composition, which includes bank loans and private investments to reach its overarching targets, was met with skepticism by climate vulnerable countries. Citicism was leveled at how it would allow the most climate vulnerable countries to be buried as well under rising debt burdens. The goal’s approach is seen by many developing nations as inadequate and a diversion from the obligation of industrialized nations under international law. Based on previous agreements and the historical failure of the $100 billion target set in COP15, reasonable skepticism weighs heavy on the negotiations for these finance-focused agenda items. The current negotiations at SB62 are thus a critical arena where the details of this compromise-laden promise are being scrutinized, debated, and ideally, translated into actionable strategies.

Financing also needs to move beyond just mitigation, which has remained the focus because of its potential to create economic drivers. Developing countries urgently require massive resources for multi-faceted climate action – for robust greenhouse gas emissions reduction (mitigation), for strengthening climate resilient systems and societies (adaptation), for the equitable transformation towards sustainable economies (a just transition), and critically, for reconstruction and recovery in the aftermath of unavoidable disasters (loss and damage).

What We Hope to See at SB62

As the global climate crisis only continues to intensify, multilateralism has become ever more critical.

At SB62, we hope to see the development of compelling text grounded on sound science and culturally rooted knowledge systems that will guide and be accepted by the Parties during COP30. Climate science is ever innovative and continually offering data-driven insights and solutions to the climate crisis. Additionally, traditional, indigenous, and local knowledge (TILK) provides crucial, culturally sensitive perspectives for effective climate solutions. However, the negotiation process often tempers these scientific recommendations with disappointing, conservative compromises that fail to reflect the urgency and ambition dictated by the latest research. While the scales between scientific ambition and political pragmatism must be balanced, this balance should not be like a Damocles sword hanging over the planet.

On a positive note, the robust presence at negotiations of civil society organizations, youth activists, and technical experts who push government delegations to take bolder action is an encouraging sign and a healthy mechanism for accountability.

Progress on establishing future climate financial commitments for mitigation, adaptation, just transition, and loss and damage should be a priority of State Parties. The need to act quickly to meet the 1.5°C commitment outlined in the Paris Agreement is paramount; every incremental delay in establishing clear frameworks for mobilizing and delivering funds translates to increased risks to communities and ecosystems.

Whether the opportunity presented by SB62 is grabbed or squandered is yet to be seen, but the outcomes of SB62 will be a good indicator of what can be expected in Belém.

Looking forward, Brazil, as the incoming COP30 President, through a series of published letters, has articulated a clear vision: to reinforce multilateralism and ensure the UNFCCC can fulfill its mandate of accelerating the implementation of the Paris Agreement, while also finding equitable solutions that are sensitive to the intricate interplay between poverty, socio-economic vulnerabilities, and both climate issues and actions.

The stakes are incredibly high, as the outcomes of SB62’s science-informed session will either propel us closer to, or further away from, the critical 1.5°C global warming limit. While the UNFCCC process is often painstakingly slow, and at times disappointingly conservative, forums like SB62 remain an indispensable arena where the science can speak. Let’s hope the world listens.