The 2025 edition of ecbi’s annual Bonn Seminar convened on the sidelines of the 62nd session of the Subsidiary Bodies under the UNFCCC, bringing together more than 40 delegates from both developing and European countries. Seminar participants discussed efforts being made on the Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T, which aims to scale up climate finance to developing countries to support low emissions and climate-resilient development pathways and implement nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and national adaptation plans (NAPs), “including through grants, concessional and non-debt creating instruments, and measures to create fiscal space, taking into account relevant multilateral initiatives as appropriate”.
Another session addressed the Mitigation Work Programme (MWP), with one developing country and former MWP Co-Chair commenting that it was the best discussion on the MWP that he has participated in, with many innovative ideas about how to improve the process put forward. Topics raised by speakers related to, among others, how to make projects more attractive for investment such as aggregating small projects to attract investment, and how to better scale up ambition and implementation.
An exchange then took place on the future of the process, with presentations addressing reorganising the COPs, which have become unruly with Summits, expos, and negotiations all happening at the same time in the same place, making attendance at these events astronomical and prohibiting small and vulnerable countries from holding COPs. One proposal is that if Australia is chosen to host COP 31, it could partner with Fiji, which could host the negotiations so that the multiple events could take place in different venues, ensuring a small island country could host.
Another presentation looked specifically at repurposing the multilateral climate process through, for example, reorganising and simplifying the agendas, moving to a multi-year programme of work so not every item needs to be addressed every time, developing different work formats and changing mindsets to focus more on implementation, and making better use of spaces held outside of the formal process, such as climate weeks.
In closing, ecbi Director Benito Müller thanked the Government of Denmark for their financial support. Reflecting on the seminar, one developed country expressed appreciation for the frank and open exchanges, mentioning, in particular, the discussion on the functioning of the MWP and the fact that both the co-facilitators of the MWP agenda item and the co-chairs of the MWP Global Dialogues and Investment Focused Events were present.
