UN climate talks in Bonn have ended with limited progress on finance.

SB60, at which the subsidiary bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), met to prepare for the next Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, started with great expectations at its launch ceremony, and ended with little changed.

Finance is, of course, central, and a new funding goal for the period 2025 to 2035 needs to agreed in line with the terms of the Paris Agreement, yet countries failed to make progress with negotiators from developing and developed countries failing to see eye to eye.

The size of the new goal is a major issue, and with that a main battleground appears to open up between those seeking to only look forward and those who want a more historical view included. It all got rather ill tempered.

One of the options of the level of finance the goal needs to aim at was put forward by African States. The Africa Group of Negotiators (AGN) proposed that a $1.3tr goal every year to address climate change in the Global South.

Illari Aragon, member of ACT’s Climate Justice group commented: “Countries in the Global North should take the lead and share the burden of mobilising climate finance. We still wait for substantial contributions from developed countries that lag in delivering their climate finance commitments.”

Another area of disagreement is whether a target comes before a method is agreed, or method, then target – in dollar terms.

Also, by 2025 all parties should have submitted new and updated national climate plans (NDCs). These plans should show what each country will do to deliver on the Paris Agreement. There was little sign of these at Bonn either.

With increasing recognition of the key role of finance as an enabler of climate action, finance remains a tricky area with agreement of its importance easier to find than agreement on its form.

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