How fast half a year goes by: It feels like COP27 in Egypt has only just ended, and now it is already time for the interim conference SB58 in Bonn. Delegations, experts and lobbyists from different sides have been meeting, emailing, zooming and negotiating almost constantly since Sharm el-Sheikh. Now they have come together again in person and are trying to move the biggest hurdles in the run-up to Dubai a little.
This won’t be easy. Because pressure is mounting from all sides: More climate extremes, more pressure for a fossil fuel phase-out, but also more counter-pressure from the countries and companies that base their business model on it. In addition, there are unresolved questions about the responsibility of the Global North, about financing the global energy transition. And all of this is now culminating in the global stocktake, which will become the decisive debate in the coming months: What lessons will the international community draw from the fact that the Paris goals have not yet been taken seriously?
Climate.Table is in Bonn and will regularly report from the scene with this special edition and throughout the next two weeks. Maybe we will see you there, or we will provide you with the most important news.
Time is pressing, this time even more than usual: At this year’s “small COP” in Germany, the doors will close at 6 pm. According to information from the UN, the conference budget is short by about one million euros. So the evening shifts of the staff will be cut. And finance is once again a key issue.
The 58th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SB58) kicks off on Monday with a program packed like never before. From 5 to 15 June, delegates from nearly 200 countries of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will wrestle to make progress for COP28, which will be held in Dubai this November.
Concrete and binding decisions are traditionally not to be expected at the conference held at the headquarters of the UN climate secretariat UNFCCC – but important decisions can be expected. As usual, the delegates and experts have met in the past months in many individual forums, working groups, and at events such as the Petersberg Climate Dialogue and are now gathering again officially and as a comprehensive conference.
The third “technical dialogue” on the global stocktake (GST) is a particular focus on the official agenda. Delegates and observers will exchange views on the status and progress on key questions of emission reductions, adaptation and financing. The GST will effectively serve as the “umbrella” over all other negotiations:
In the run-up to the conference, the conference leaders, the current chairs of the UN science (SBSTA) and implementation (SBI) agencies, Harry Vreuls and Nabeel Munir, outlined their expectations in a “scenario.” In it, they implore delegates to work efficiently and with consensus, given the limited time and pressing issues. “Time management is of absolute essence in our process as the workload seems to be ever-increasing while
Because 70 events are scheduled, with three hours each, the conference leaders say, it is necessary to abandon a rule of SB56 – that no events shall be held in parallel to the negotiations in order to guarantee general participation. “We expect Parties to use time efficiently during the negotiations, with a focus on advancing work and reaching agreement,” Vreuls and Munir write.
However, whether SB58 will abandon the usual delaying tactics and exceeding the schedules of the conferences is doubtful. And the called-for “constructive spirit” will also be urgently needed, given the sometimes fiercely disputed issues discussed openly and behind the scenes. The presidencies of COP27 and COP28 have summarized their expectations for Dubai: They show the whole range of usual demands, from rapid progress to “not imposing” new targets and goals.
Observers also expect that the tone at the Bonn conference will, as usual, be more demanding and confrontational before shifting towards consensus at COP. There will be partly conflicting ideas on the table:
Mr. Messner, a big topic at SB58 in Bonn and at the COP in Dubai will be the global stocktake. But what does this stocktake bring other than the realization we already have – that we are not on the right path?
Basically, we have a global stocktake every year – the UNEP Emissions Gap Report. This time, the emissions reduction progress is broadly reviewed and discussed by the negotiating community. From this, conclusions then have to be drawn. In other words, the COP will focus on the gap between ambition and reality. That is what is special. And it shows: Emissions continue to rise, whereas they would have to be halved by 2030 to limit global warming to a 1.5-degree path. All countries must do significantly more.
But shouldn’t the global stocktake also tell us how we want to achieve our goals by 2030? And this is where many are now bringing CO2 storage (CCS) into play.
We will need CCS. I don’t know of any global scenarios where the global temperature increase stays below two degrees without CCS. There are still no emission-free solutions for certain sectors, at least today. This applies, for example, to agriculture and certain industrial sectors such as cement production. CCS can compensate for residual emissions, but must not be a substitute for a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
But this is exactly what is being discussed. For example, by the upcoming COP28 president.
And that is wrong. CO2 storage cannot be a loophole to give fossil energies a future. The German Environment Agency rejects such a guarantee regarding the continued operation of fossil energies. We are discussing this with many stakeholders, recently, for example, with the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates. Germany and Europe are also re-evaluating CCS and the importance of negative emissions. We will require both to achieve global climate neutrality before the middle of the century and to offset residual emissions. Ultimately, however, CO2 storage comes far too late, as we need massive CO2 reductions already by 2030 and then again by 2040. We don’t even have serious research on the potential of global CCS storage sites, let alone a corresponding infrastructure. CCS is not a game-changer that renders the phase-out of fossil fuels obsolete, but a supplement to rapid emission reductions.
But there is a broad coalition for CCS for fossil fuels as well: oil states, the USA, Russia, China. It won’t be easy to prevent this path.
Yes, these will be difficult talks. It is important to strengthen the broad consensus, including in the scientific community, that phasing out fossil fuels is at the heart of climate action. The USA and China also share this view. We also need a discussion with the group of countries for which fossil fuels form the economic basis. How these countries achieve the transition to climate neutrality needs to matter to us because otherwise, they might not participate, but flood the market with cheap oil and gas. Some oil and gas states, for example, rely on significant investments in renewables and green hydrogen, this also goes for the United Arab Emirates – but so far, in addition to fossil business models.
How are you planning to convince poorer oil and gas exporting countries, such as Africa, who insist on fossil fuels for their development?
First of all, OECD countries and China need to deliver on accelerating emissions reductions. Then we quickly come to the financing issues. The industrialized countries are in a difficult position. They can only say this year, two years late, that they will deliver on their promise of 100 billion dollars in climate aid for poorer countries. The fact that it has taken so long has cost us a lot of credibility.
Moreover, we have to deliver when it comes to the costs of loss and damage as destruction due to climate impacts. There are good approaches, which I have recently discussed with African colleagues, for example, the restructuring of debts to link them to emission reductions and climate change adaptation measures. Or ambitious climate partnerships that the German government is building with countries like South Africa, Indonesia and India. There is still a lot to do.
Will other countries than the classic developed countries also pay in these matters?
This is necessary because the weights in the global economy and among the main emitters have shifted. Then China and the wealthy oil states would also be in the circle of donor countries. Not included are the 50 percent of the global population responsible for only ten percent of emissions. What is clear is that climate action is a global equity issue: The rich ten percent of the world’s population is responsible for about half of the emissions.
Will the dispute over CCS jeopardize the next COP?
The issue of CO2 storage will certainly be a hotly debated issue, but there is an even greater threat: The debate about geoengineering. I suddenly hear the term everywhere, and that concerns me. If the developing countries get the impression that the industrialized countries are not serious about their reduction strategies and that we cannot manage to stay below a temperature increase of two degrees, that becomes a problem. Then poorer countries, where the effects of climate change are increasing dramatically from year to year, get the impression that geoengineering, for example introducing chemicals into the atmosphere to reduce solar radiation, could be the last line of defense. Fighting the fossil-driven Earth system change with a new round of human-driven Earth system change is dangerous.
At COP27, India, as a G77 country, proposed cutting fossil fuels, and the island states were also in favor. Are the blocs dissolving during the negotiations?
Many poor developing countries no longer always see China as an equal partner but as a state that is currently responsible for one-third of global emissions. We must now do everything we can to strengthen the alliance of ambitious states that want to achieve results at the COPs – the island states threatened to perish should be our moral compass in this.
Alden Meyer says he works where “rhetoric meets the real world.” And these days, of course, that’s the climate conference in Bonn. To which Alden Meyer has traveled again. And where, as always, he will walk through the corridors and negotiating rooms, often with his small wheeled suitcase in tow. He tends not to get very far. Because everywhere Alden Meyer knows people and people know him: friends, foes, acquaintances.
Meyer has been a senior associate at the US think tank Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G) since the end of 2020, where he focuses on US and international climate policy. His job is to translate the demands of climate and environmental movements into concrete policy proposals, the 71-year-old explains. “Time is our biggest challenge.”
Hardly anyone in the United States – or the world – has as much experience in international climate diplomacy and energy policy as the 71-year-old. Meyer has been working on both issues for nearly 50 years. In the early 1970s, he studied politics and economics at the elite Yale University. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in human resources and organizational development at American University in Washington. He graduated in 1975.
With his gray hair and refined, calm manner, Meyer comes across as an experienced politician. But when it comes to the substance of his statements, they hardly differ from those of climate activists 50 years younger. Anyone who is not sad, who is not angry that not enough is being done to fight the climate crisis, has not properly grasped the problem of the climate emergency, says Meyer. There have been times, he says, when the many setbacks have gotten to him and almost made him despair. When he thinks about the huge missed opportunities of the past three decades, he still feels sad.
But he says those who lose hope give up, which may be just as bad. “We have to keep fighting,” he adds. He believes that every tenth of a degree makes a difference. That’s why he remains committed to international climate action.
He has a lot of experience with this: After graduating, Meyer first organized a campaign against nuclear power in New England for several years. Later, he worked in various positions for the Union of Concerned Scientists in the US from 1989 to 2020. He is particularly proud of the progress his campaigns to expand renewable energy in the United States have made.
Internationally, Meyer has followed the COPs from the beginning. He also sees their achievements as personal successes: For example, when then-US President George Bush (Sr.) declared that his country would participate in the global climate action process at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Or when the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 – although the US Senate never ratified it. Meyer also sees where things did not go smoothly: The failed negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009 were a setback, but the Paris Climate Agreement six years later gave him renewed hope.
Meyer travels a lot, but whenever there’s no international climate summit, he lives with his wife in Takoma Park in Maryland. Or he relaxes around Lake Huron and the mountains in Canada. As a child, he had already spent his summers there, going hiking or kayaking. This is how he developed a deep connection to nature, he says, and realized how important it is to preserve our planet.
In 2020, after more than 30 years with Concerned Scientists, he began to feel that he was spending too much time on organization and bureaucracy and not enough on truly engaging with the subject. Rather than retiring, he decided to take the next step in his career at E3G. He explains the core of his work for the think tank as follows: When observing climate policy processes, he tries to determine at which point one can influence the system particularly efficiently at a given time. Climate financing, for example, is currently an important starting point.
Meyer says he is fighting for a global transition, for a fully decarbonized future, and wants to continue doing his part to ensure the Paris Climate Agreement is realized. And there is still a lot to do, he says: Emissions from agriculture or land-use change have not been sufficiently taken into account so far. “Countries in Europe and the United States must finally take their global responsibility seriously and protect the most vulnerable from the consequences of the climate crisis,” he says. For that, changes are necessary, the likes of which humanity has not seen before. But he believes there is hope: Many people and organizations are improving their cooperation to address the climate crisis on the scale and at the speed that is needed. Lisa Kuner
How fast half a year goes by: It feels like COP27 in Egypt has only just ended, and now it is already time for the interim conference SB58 in Bonn. Delegations, experts and lobbyists from different sides have been meeting, emailing, zooming and negotiating almost constantly since Sharm el-Sheikh. Now they have come together again in person and are trying to move the biggest hurdles in the run-up to Dubai a little.
This won’t be easy. Because pressure is mounting from all sides: More climate extremes, more pressure for a fossil fuel phase-out, but also more counter-pressure from the countries and companies that base their business model on it. In addition, there are unresolved questions about the responsibility of the Global North, about financing the global energy transition. And all of this is now culminating in the global stocktake, which will become the decisive debate in the coming months: What lessons will the international community draw from the fact that the Paris goals have not yet been taken seriously?
Climate.Table is in Bonn and will regularly report from the scene with this special edition and throughout the next two weeks. Maybe we will see you there, or we will provide you with the most important news.
Time is pressing, this time even more than usual: At this year’s “small COP” in Germany, the doors will close at 6 pm. According to information from the UN, the conference budget is short by about one million euros. So the evening shifts of the staff will be cut. And finance is once again a key issue.
The 58th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SB58) kicks off on Monday with a program packed like never before. From 5 to 15 June, delegates from nearly 200 countries of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will wrestle to make progress for COP28, which will be held in Dubai this November.
Concrete and binding decisions are traditionally not to be expected at the conference held at the headquarters of the UN climate secretariat UNFCCC – but important decisions can be expected. As usual, the delegates and experts have met in the past months in many individual forums, working groups, and at events such as the Petersberg Climate Dialogue and are now gathering again officially and as a comprehensive conference.
The third “technical dialogue” on the global stocktake (GST) is a particular focus on the official agenda. Delegates and observers will exchange views on the status and progress on key questions of emission reductions, adaptation and financing. The GST will effectively serve as the “umbrella” over all other negotiations:
In the run-up to the conference, the conference leaders, the current chairs of the UN science (SBSTA) and implementation (SBI) agencies, Harry Vreuls and Nabeel Munir, outlined their expectations in a “scenario.” In it, they implore delegates to work efficiently and with consensus, given the limited time and pressing issues. “Time management is of absolute essence in our process as the workload seems to be ever-increasing while
Because 70 events are scheduled, with three hours each, the conference leaders say, it is necessary to abandon a rule of SB56 – that no events shall be held in parallel to the negotiations in order to guarantee general participation. “We expect Parties to use time efficiently during the negotiations, with a focus on advancing work and reaching agreement,” Vreuls and Munir write.
However, whether SB58 will abandon the usual delaying tactics and exceeding the schedules of the conferences is doubtful. And the called-for “constructive spirit” will also be urgently needed, given the sometimes fiercely disputed issues discussed openly and behind the scenes. The presidencies of COP27 and COP28 have summarized their expectations for Dubai: They show the whole range of usual demands, from rapid progress to “not imposing” new targets and goals.
Observers also expect that the tone at the Bonn conference will, as usual, be more demanding and confrontational before shifting towards consensus at COP. There will be partly conflicting ideas on the table:
Mr. Messner, a big topic at SB58 in Bonn and at the COP in Dubai will be the global stocktake. But what does this stocktake bring other than the realization we already have – that we are not on the right path?
Basically, we have a global stocktake every year – the UNEP Emissions Gap Report. This time, the emissions reduction progress is broadly reviewed and discussed by the negotiating community. From this, conclusions then have to be drawn. In other words, the COP will focus on the gap between ambition and reality. That is what is special. And it shows: Emissions continue to rise, whereas they would have to be halved by 2030 to limit global warming to a 1.5-degree path. All countries must do significantly more.
But shouldn’t the global stocktake also tell us how we want to achieve our goals by 2030? And this is where many are now bringing CO2 storage (CCS) into play.
We will need CCS. I don’t know of any global scenarios where the global temperature increase stays below two degrees without CCS. There are still no emission-free solutions for certain sectors, at least today. This applies, for example, to agriculture and certain industrial sectors such as cement production. CCS can compensate for residual emissions, but must not be a substitute for a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
But this is exactly what is being discussed. For example, by the upcoming COP28 president.
And that is wrong. CO2 storage cannot be a loophole to give fossil energies a future. The German Environment Agency rejects such a guarantee regarding the continued operation of fossil energies. We are discussing this with many stakeholders, recently, for example, with the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates. Germany and Europe are also re-evaluating CCS and the importance of negative emissions. We will require both to achieve global climate neutrality before the middle of the century and to offset residual emissions. Ultimately, however, CO2 storage comes far too late, as we need massive CO2 reductions already by 2030 and then again by 2040. We don’t even have serious research on the potential of global CCS storage sites, let alone a corresponding infrastructure. CCS is not a game-changer that renders the phase-out of fossil fuels obsolete, but a supplement to rapid emission reductions.
But there is a broad coalition for CCS for fossil fuels as well: oil states, the USA, Russia, China. It won’t be easy to prevent this path.
Yes, these will be difficult talks. It is important to strengthen the broad consensus, including in the scientific community, that phasing out fossil fuels is at the heart of climate action. The USA and China also share this view. We also need a discussion with the group of countries for which fossil fuels form the economic basis. How these countries achieve the transition to climate neutrality needs to matter to us because otherwise, they might not participate, but flood the market with cheap oil and gas. Some oil and gas states, for example, rely on significant investments in renewables and green hydrogen, this also goes for the United Arab Emirates – but so far, in addition to fossil business models.
How are you planning to convince poorer oil and gas exporting countries, such as Africa, who insist on fossil fuels for their development?
First of all, OECD countries and China need to deliver on accelerating emissions reductions. Then we quickly come to the financing issues. The industrialized countries are in a difficult position. They can only say this year, two years late, that they will deliver on their promise of 100 billion dollars in climate aid for poorer countries. The fact that it has taken so long has cost us a lot of credibility.
Moreover, we have to deliver when it comes to the costs of loss and damage as destruction due to climate impacts. There are good approaches, which I have recently discussed with African colleagues, for example, the restructuring of debts to link them to emission reductions and climate change adaptation measures. Or ambitious climate partnerships that the German government is building with countries like South Africa, Indonesia and India. There is still a lot to do.
Will other countries than the classic developed countries also pay in these matters?
This is necessary because the weights in the global economy and among the main emitters have shifted. Then China and the wealthy oil states would also be in the circle of donor countries. Not included are the 50 percent of the global population responsible for only ten percent of emissions. What is clear is that climate action is a global equity issue: The rich ten percent of the world’s population is responsible for about half of the emissions.
Will the dispute over CCS jeopardize the next COP?
The issue of CO2 storage will certainly be a hotly debated issue, but there is an even greater threat: The debate about geoengineering. I suddenly hear the term everywhere, and that concerns me. If the developing countries get the impression that the industrialized countries are not serious about their reduction strategies and that we cannot manage to stay below a temperature increase of two degrees, that becomes a problem. Then poorer countries, where the effects of climate change are increasing dramatically from year to year, get the impression that geoengineering, for example introducing chemicals into the atmosphere to reduce solar radiation, could be the last line of defense. Fighting the fossil-driven Earth system change with a new round of human-driven Earth system change is dangerous.
At COP27, India, as a G77 country, proposed cutting fossil fuels, and the island states were also in favor. Are the blocs dissolving during the negotiations?
Many poor developing countries no longer always see China as an equal partner but as a state that is currently responsible for one-third of global emissions. We must now do everything we can to strengthen the alliance of ambitious states that want to achieve results at the COPs – the island states threatened to perish should be our moral compass in this.
Alden Meyer says he works where “rhetoric meets the real world.” And these days, of course, that’s the climate conference in Bonn. To which Alden Meyer has traveled again. And where, as always, he will walk through the corridors and negotiating rooms, often with his small wheeled suitcase in tow. He tends not to get very far. Because everywhere Alden Meyer knows people and people know him: friends, foes, acquaintances.
Meyer has been a senior associate at the US think tank Third Generation Environmentalism (E3G) since the end of 2020, where he focuses on US and international climate policy. His job is to translate the demands of climate and environmental movements into concrete policy proposals, the 71-year-old explains. “Time is our biggest challenge.”
Hardly anyone in the United States – or the world – has as much experience in international climate diplomacy and energy policy as the 71-year-old. Meyer has been working on both issues for nearly 50 years. In the early 1970s, he studied politics and economics at the elite Yale University. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in human resources and organizational development at American University in Washington. He graduated in 1975.
With his gray hair and refined, calm manner, Meyer comes across as an experienced politician. But when it comes to the substance of his statements, they hardly differ from those of climate activists 50 years younger. Anyone who is not sad, who is not angry that not enough is being done to fight the climate crisis, has not properly grasped the problem of the climate emergency, says Meyer. There have been times, he says, when the many setbacks have gotten to him and almost made him despair. When he thinks about the huge missed opportunities of the past three decades, he still feels sad.
But he says those who lose hope give up, which may be just as bad. “We have to keep fighting,” he adds. He believes that every tenth of a degree makes a difference. That’s why he remains committed to international climate action.
He has a lot of experience with this: After graduating, Meyer first organized a campaign against nuclear power in New England for several years. Later, he worked in various positions for the Union of Concerned Scientists in the US from 1989 to 2020. He is particularly proud of the progress his campaigns to expand renewable energy in the United States have made.
Internationally, Meyer has followed the COPs from the beginning. He also sees their achievements as personal successes: For example, when then-US President George Bush (Sr.) declared that his country would participate in the global climate action process at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Or when the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997 – although the US Senate never ratified it. Meyer also sees where things did not go smoothly: The failed negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009 were a setback, but the Paris Climate Agreement six years later gave him renewed hope.
Meyer travels a lot, but whenever there’s no international climate summit, he lives with his wife in Takoma Park in Maryland. Or he relaxes around Lake Huron and the mountains in Canada. As a child, he had already spent his summers there, going hiking or kayaking. This is how he developed a deep connection to nature, he says, and realized how important it is to preserve our planet.
In 2020, after more than 30 years with Concerned Scientists, he began to feel that he was spending too much time on organization and bureaucracy and not enough on truly engaging with the subject. Rather than retiring, he decided to take the next step in his career at E3G. He explains the core of his work for the think tank as follows: When observing climate policy processes, he tries to determine at which point one can influence the system particularly efficiently at a given time. Climate financing, for example, is currently an important starting point.
Meyer says he is fighting for a global transition, for a fully decarbonized future, and wants to continue doing his part to ensure the Paris Climate Agreement is realized. And there is still a lot to do, he says: Emissions from agriculture or land-use change have not been sufficiently taken into account so far. “Countries in Europe and the United States must finally take their global responsibility seriously and protect the most vulnerable from the consequences of the climate crisis,” he says. For that, changes are necessary, the likes of which humanity has not seen before. But he believes there is hope: Many people and organizations are improving their cooperation to address the climate crisis on the scale and at the speed that is needed. Lisa Kuner
