BONN SB64
TPNS attended Bonn Climate conference for the first week – 7-13 June. It was a packed five day week (+one day each end travelling) – much progress was made and many plans discussed with a range of potential allies and collaborators – plans which will take us from COP31 in Turkey to Bonn 2027 and COP32 in Ethiopia.
OBSERVATIONS
BONN CLIMATE CONFERENCE 2026 was a markedly different climate conference to previous COPs and Bonn meetings TPNS has attended (beginning with COP Sharm El Sheikh 2022)
Prior to this SB64, you could not take for granted that any delegate – NGO or wider – would be aware of the military emissions/spending issue, let alone Parties attending. This SB64 it was clear that delegates were aware and it made informal conversations; actions; meetings; interventions all the more impactful and effective in advancing not only information but solutions.
So, the SB64 was by far and away the most encouraging calendar moment in the effort to get military emissions and – vitally – spending – onto various constituencies radar/agenda.
INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS
Our work on military emissions and military spending is becoming more integrated into larger networks and our collaborations are growing also.
Climate Action Network’s inclusion of military spending in its climate finance messaging was heartening– including its daily ECO newspaper (widely read by delegates and parties) and includes military spending alongside debt and tax justice.
To make all these transitions possible, we need developed countries to provide predictable and accessible finance to developing countries before we count the transition milestones. It must account for the full costs of a Just Transition, and be delivered in the form of grants and concessional public finance, not loans. ECO suggests they simply stop funding wars and other forms of mass destruction and redirect that money to this just cause for humanity instead. In fact, the world’s financial architecture itself needs an urgent overhaul, to address debt and tax injustice and finally free developing countries from colonial traps.
Women and Gender Constituency
The WGC is a coalition of 28 NGOs established in 2009 and recognized as official observer by the UNFCCC Secretariat in 2011. TPNS is a member of the WGC working group on demilitarisation and climate. For Bonn this year, the WGC made demilitarisation a key focus of their activity at Bonn and its advocacy briefing on military emissions and spending was prepared by TPNS, WILPF and PEACEBOAT. The WGC significantly amplified our messages.
SB64 took place amid escalating conflicts, the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people, the humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan, the continuing war on Ukraine, military aggression against Iran, and record global military spending. Yet despite the growing climate impacts of militarisation, these issues remained largely absent from formal negotiations. The Women and Gender Constituency worked to bring these concerns into UNFCCC spaces through interventions, side events, and public actions. In official discussions on the UAE Dialogue, Global Stocktake implementation, and the Belém Mission to 1.5, the WGC highlighted the contradiction between inadequate climate finance and record military expenditure, called attention to the military emissions gap, and stressed that climate justice cannot be separated from peace, human rights, and environmental justice.
https://womengenderclimate.org/resources/sb64-outcome-statement/
Interfaith at UNFCCC
Thanks to the Quaker UN Office (QUNO) TPNS is invited to a number of meetings convened by the Interfaith and Climate Working Group and affords an invaluable opportunity to share our messages and reports with a diverse group of faith leaders who work inside the UNFCCC space. Last year Deborah spoke to the military spending vs climate finance issue at their press conference.
WGC BRIEFING prepared for Bonn
TPNS joined with Peaceboat and WILPF to prepare an advocacy briefing prepared for THE WOMEN & GENDER CONSTITUENCY on demilitarisation and climate finance which was widely shared with parties (governments).
HIGHLIGHTS
SIDE EVENT
Peace and Climate Justice: Emissions, Finance and Equity
Side event was very well attended. Speakers addressed military emissions; spending; Palestine and energy embargo on Israel; Israel’s war on Lebanon; nuclear weapons.
The session as also selected for inclusion in UNFCCC research on impact of side events.
Deborah’s presentation is here.
INTERFAITH MEETING
QUNO invitation to TPNS to join a roundtable on Faith and Climate Science. Invaluable opportunity to be included in the work of the Interfaith Committee on Climate Change – a UNFCCC body. Representatives from many faiths including Anglican churches, Holy See, Islamic Relief, Quakers.
FILM SCREENING
TPNS/Peaceboat screening of Earth’s Greatest Enemy – a film by US film-maker Abby Martin about US military impact on people and planet.
The event was well attended with follow up requests by attendees to screen the film in their own countries.
Possible proposal for film to show in Blue Zone COP31; https://earthsgreatestenemy.com/
ACTION
Permission needs to be granted for actions inside the UNFCCC space. Our action on demilitarisation – emissions, spending –took place in the main space inside the conference centre. Speakers from Latin America, Africa, Palestine, Europe made their respective demands. Well attended by delegates.
MEETINGS
CAN Energy Working Group Deep Dive into the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels. Karen Hallows made intervention to say military emissions and spending need to be part of the TAFF agenda.
IPCC Vice Chair Diana Urge-Vorsatz. TPNS shared its work on military emissions. Guidance given on how TPNS can register as expert reviewer of the forthcoming draft of the Special Report on Cities – our call has consistently been for the IPCC Special Report to include military emissions.
PLENARY INTERVENTION
Our Peaceboat colleague Karen Hallows was able to make an intervention on behalf of WGC at the plenary hosted by Brazil and Turkey. Her intervention was on military emissions and spending. The UK, EU and many other nations were in the hall to hear this intervention. An important step taken in pushing the issue ever further up the agenda of the UNFCCC.
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AFTER BONN, WHAT NEXT? This summary from colleagues at Powershift Africa
SB64 buried its head in the sand. It did not deliver on finance, commitments were not met, and nations chose to put discussions on issues that needed to be resolved in Bonn on hold. This midyear climate summit delivered only procedural progress on some negotiated items, omitted others entirely from the formal agenda, and introduced voluntary initiatives that will shape the agenda for COP31 in Türkiye.
Yet Bonn 2026 was supposed to be a place where commitments made at last year’s COP30 in Brazil started to take shape. Implementation was big on the agenda. On that score, Bonn faltered. And on other scores, notably loss and damage, mitigation, and inclusion, the failure was spectacular. In the end, delegates from developing country blocs who had arrived in Bonn with hope for a better future for frontline communities back home left with a bitter taste in their mouths.
Developed countries spent the two weeks in Bonn trying to erase from the record a commitment they made just months ago in Belém to triple adaptation finance.”
— Mohamed Adow, Director, Power Shift Africa
On its final day, marked with heated debate and tension between Parties, the summit removed the lid on the widening gap between universal agreement on climate ‘‘implementation’’ and the actual delivery of actionable finance and concrete commitments.
BUT WHAT DID SB64 ACTUALLY DELIVER?
Global Goal on Adaptation – deadlocked
This was one of the most volatile discussions at SB64. After agreeing on 59 indicators at COP30 last year, Bonn was expected to provide a platform for Parties to translate political goals into concrete technical outcomes. Discussions also sought to track international provision of adaptation finance and support. For two weeks, however, developed and developing countries couldn’t reach a consensus on how to fund and measure progress in adaptation. They also couldn’t agree on the composition of a task force to guide this work going forward
‘‘Developed countries are hiding behind procedural arguments by claiming adaptation finance belongs in some other room, on some other day. Climate disasters don’t wait for the right agenda item. Africa is burning and flooding now,’’ Adow said.
In the end, ‘‘Rule 16’’ of the Convention was invoked, meaning no substantive decision was finalised. The matter was, therefore, deferred to COP31, a decision that portends danger for the future of the negotiations.
‘‘This rule is worse than a procedural outcome. Countries have effectively pressed pause on a process that was supposed to help turn adaptation commitments into action.”
— Ana Mulio Alvarez, Policy Advisor, E3G
FINANCE – impasse
In Bonn, discussions on mobilising scaled-up adaptation finance were highly contested, as developing countries pushed for more transparent delivery plans and access pathways, especially for adaptation finance. Marlene Achoki likens finance discussions in Bonn to bad fiction. ‘‘Commitments to provide Adaptation finance cannot simply disappear when it is time to deliver on them,’’ says the Global Climate Justice Policy Lead at CARE International. Wealthy nations continued to push discussions on process, procedure, and frameworks and resisted firm financial commitments. True to form, the talks collapsed in the end. Developed countries had, once again, betrayed their developing partners.
“You cannot arrive at a climate summit, make a promise to the most vulnerable people on earth, and then fly home and pretend it never happened,” — Mohamed Adow, Director, Power Shift Africa
ADAPTATION FUND – dilution
The Adaptation Fund was the only substantive agenda item aimed at finalising negotiations on new legal and institutional arrangements that would allow it to access additional resources from the carbon market mechanisms of the Paris Agreement.
However, progress was effectively stalled by developed countries, who insisted on legal technicalities that would alter the Fund’s governance structures and redefine key terminology ‘‘under the pretext of transition,’’ notes Saada Mohamed, a Climate Finance Advisor at Power Shift Africa.
“These tactics are aimed at diluting developed countries’ binding obligations to provide climate finance to their developing counterparts. They also effectively shift the burden of contributions onto vulnerable nations.”— Saada Mohamed, Climate Finance Advisor, Power Shift Africa
Tipping Point North South 