Civil society working together at SB62.
At the UN’s mid-year climate talks in Bonn, the climate finance gap remained unresolved—but critical momentum was built around just transition, intersectional justice, and the demand for reparations. Despite delays and stalling by wealthy countries, civil society voices pushed accountability and bold solutions to the center of the agenda.
By Matt Forgette, CESR Program Associate
Climate finance was once again at the heart of global climate negotiations, and once again, it was the issue that exposed the deepest fractures. At SB62 (the UNFCCC’s mid-year meeting in Bonn, Germany) countries were tasked with building on the outcomes of COP29 and advancing key agendas ahead of COP30. We previewed these stakes in our blog ahead of SB62, where we noted how the disappointing New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) had already set the stage for tension. Instead, SB62 delivered mixed results: slow progress on finance, some breakthroughs on just transition, and growing frustration from civil society and Global South countries alike.
Two weeks of negotiations closed with the climate finance gap still unresolved. Wealthy nations continued to block meaningful accountability for their obligations, resisting Global South proposals and failing to respond to the urgency of the moment. But SB62 wasn’t without signs of movement. Across side events, press briefings, and negotiation rooms, the growing alignment between civil society, small island states, and frontline communities was impossible to ignore. From climate reparations to tax and debt justice, and from just mineral governance to legal accountability, the seeds of a more just climate future are being sown, even if they’re not yet reflected in official outcomes.
Here, we unpack the key highlights of SB62:
1. Climate finance continues to hang in the balance
Despite being bound by international human rights principles—such as the Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) framework—and environmental commitments like Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, Global North countries largely resisted proposals from the G77 and China to establish meaningful accountability mechanisms for the delivery of climate finance.
Civil society did its best to highlight the linkage between tax, debt, and climate justice. Advocates emphasized a recent global survey by Oxfam America, showing 86% of people support using higher fossil fuel taxes to fund climate-impacted communities.Our allies at theTax Justice Network also launched a report showing that a minimal 2% wealth tax on the super rich could more than generate more than double the goal cited in the NCQG. There was also some evidence of civil society demands breaking through with country delegations, as representatives from the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) urged the rapid scaling of concessional and grant-based finance to avoid worsening Global South debt crises.
Still, the overall sentiment at the conclusion of Bonn’s two weeks of climate talks was that the climate finance gap remains unresolved. As summarized by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)’s press release, “UN climate talks in Bonn concluded after two weeks with no sense of urgency, as countries struggled to make meaningful progress ahead of COP30.”
2. Intersectional Justice, human rights, and reparations enter the discourse
As the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree deadline approaches, four Global North countries (the United States, Canada, Norway, and Australia) account for 70% of planned oil and gas expansion over the next decade.This reticence of rich Global North countries to substantively engage with climate justice issues left some within civil society questioning the efficacy of the UNFCCC process as a whole. As part of this, SB62 saw the COP30 Presidency host consultations exploring ways to better align the UNFCCC with its goals.
Still, even if the root causes of the climate crisis are not being fully addressed within the UNFCCC, it provides a valuable multilateral space for both Global South countries and civil society to strengthen and engage in cross-movement building. For example, UN Special Rapporteur Elisa Morgera released a groundbreaking report calling for the criminalization of fossil fuel disinformation and a total ban on industry lobbying. Crucially, the report asserts that wealthy fossil fuel-producing nations have a legal obligation under international law to phase out oil, gas, and coal by 2030 and provide reparations to communities harmed by these industries.
The past two weeks of SB62 also saw climate justice linked with other ongoing struggles for justice. SB62 also provided a venue where new and exciting discussions around human rights and reparations were able to flourish. The first week featured a panel hosted by La Ruta del Clima which explored the deep connections between climate reparations and human rights law. Meanwhile, a side event organized by Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) spotlighted the imperative for just mineral governance as a cornerstone of a truly just transition.
3. Just transition advances
Some of the most concrete progress came in the form of a draft text from the Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP), an initiative that has been led by both Indigenous and working communities worldwide. Taking into account the ILO’s estimate that around 80 million jobs will be lost by 2030 due to the climate crisis, the JTWP aims to support countries in designing transition pathways. In a Bonn Conference that often felt plagued by a lack of urgency, the establishment of a JTWP text represented a welcome and sorely-needed tangible victory.
Pushing for justice in the road ahead
Civil society, Global South negotiators, and frontline communities worked together during SB62 to push a powerful message: climate finance must be rooted in justice, not charity. In that spirit, CESR co-hosted the event “Climate Reparations: Advancing Justice for Frontline Communities”, where speakers called out Global North delay tactics and advanced rights-based solutions, including tax and debt justice.
As our Director of Program, Dr. Marianna Leite wrote in her reflections on SB62:
“Providing climate finance at the scale, quantity and quality that is needed and as determined by the best available science is an obligation and fundamental for reparatory justice—not charity.”
This framing echoed throughout the negotiations and side events in Bonn, as civil society and Global South voices pushed back against delay tactics and insisted that climate finance must be grounded in rights and justice.
Throughout the talks, CESR joined others in reinforcing the legal and normative foundations of climate finance, sharing our Key Concepts: Climate Finance, Reparations and Human Rights, and collaborating with La Ruta del Clima to reframe global obligations through a reparations lens.
As the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) continues in Spain, the links between climate justice, debt, tax, and development finance are clearer than ever. Transformative climate finance will not emerge from climate spaces alone, but from collective pressure across movements working to rewrite the rules of the global economy.