The Bonn Climate Change Conference took place in Bonn, Germany, from 4-15 June 2014, and included the 40th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). The fifth meeting of the second session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP 2-5) also took place. The meeting brought together approximately 2790 participants, 1689 representing parties and observer states, 1068 from observer organizations, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and 37 media.
The Bonn Climate Change Conference marked the first time in UNFCCC history that high-level ministerial events convened outside of the Conference of the Parties (COP) and the COP serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP). Ministerials convened during the first two days of the session, including the High-Level Ministerial Roundtable under the Kyoto Protocol, which aimed to assess implementation of the Protocol and provide ministers with an opportunity to increase their quantified emission limitation and reduction commitments (QELRCs). The High-Level Ministerial Dialogue on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action aimed to raise pre-2020 ambition and provide momentum for negotiations on the 2015 agreement.
During the session, SBI 40 and SBSTA 40 began quickly moving through the items, with many considered in informal consultations rather than contact groups. SBI 40 made good progress, according to many, on issues including Convention Article 6 (education, training and public awareness). SBSTA 40 achieved progress as characterized by many on agriculture, and research and systematic observation.
ADP 2-5 convened in a contact group at this session, as decided at ADP 2-4 in March 2014, structured around workstream 1 (2015 agreement) and workstream 2 (pre-2020 ambition). Under workstream 1, the ADP discussed: mitigation; adaptation; finance; technology and capacity building (means of implementation); transparency; intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs); and other issues related to elements. Under workstream 2, Thematic Expert Meetings (TEMs) on the urban environment and land use were organized, and a forum on the role of cities and subnational authorities in mitigation and adaptation also convened.
For the complete report, please see iisd.
To fight illegal coca plantations and conflict actors’ income sources, Colombia’s president wants to loosen the ban on aerial glyphosate spraying. However, considering the dynamics of organised crime, the use of toxic herbicides will not only fail to achieve its aim, it will have many adverse effects for the environment and human health, fundamentally undermining ways to reach peace in the country. International cooperation and national policy-makers need to account for this peace spoiler.
As India grapples with the worsening impacts of climate change, the need to strengthen its adaptation efforts has become more significant than ever. Climate diplomacy and mainstreaming climate adaptation into the most vulnerable sectors could provide some solutions to overcoming barriers, such as the lack of sustainable funding.
“Climate Security risks will materialise in very different ways and forms, whether we talk about Lake Chad or about the Arctic, Bangladesh and the Small Island Developing States,” said the EU’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, Joao Vale de Almeida, in his opening remarks. “But for the EU, there is no doubt, as underlined in 2016 in our Global Strategy, and reaffirmed by the 28 Ministers of Foreign Affairs, that climate change is a major threat to the security of the EU and to global peace and security more generally,” he said.
The challenges facing the international community are growing while the willingness to cooperate seems to be waning. Foreign policy must help bridge this gap. One way to accomplish this is by pushing forward a major achievement of multilateralism: the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. At a side event during the 2019 High-Level Political Forum, diplomats and policy experts discussed the role of foreign policy in the global sustainability architecture.