WHAT IS AT STAKE ON LOSS AND DAMAGE AT THE 2025 BONN CLIMATE CONFERENCE?

This blog provides an executive summary of the Loss and Damage Collaboration’s key messages for the 2025 Bonn Climate Conference. For detailed messages and context for each agenda item read the messages here. 

‍

What is the Bonn Climate Conference, when is it happening?

‍

The 2025 Bonn Climate Conference will take place between the 16th and 26th of June at the World Conference Center Bonn (WCCB), in Bonn, Germany. This will be the sixty-second session of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB 62) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Paris Agreement and Kyoto Protocol, which includes the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI). 

The annual meeting of the Subsidiary Bodies, or SBs as they are colloquially referred to, are an opportunity to take the temperature of the climate negotiations before the much more heated Conference of Parties (COP). Work at the SBs includes preparing draft decisions which are forwarded for consideration and possible adoption at the annual COP meeting. This year the 30th COP (COP 30) will be held in Belem, Brazil.

‍

What is at stake?

‍

Since July 2023, as a result of human induced climate change, the Earth's average temperature has been at least 1.5°C (2.7° Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. A recent report from the  World Meteorological Organization lays bare the loss and damage already being caused by the climate crisis and its disproportionate impact on those least responsible in developing countries, highlighting that in 2024 alone there were 151 unprecedented extreme weather events that displaced, and made homeless, over 800,000 people. Halfway through 2025 we've already witnessed devastating climate disasters including Cyclone Dikeledi which affected 283,334 people in Mozambique and killed 3 in Madargasgar, extreme flooding in Argentina that saw 300mm of rain in 8 hours that severely impacted 300,000 people and caused 16 deaths and a Central Asian heatwave 10°C (50° Fahrenheit) above average. Scientists have also told us that the quantified midpoint average for the expected Loss and Damage funding needs of developing countries in 2025 is a staggering 395 [128–937] billion USD. In short, we are in a crisis and this must set the pace and ambition of the work on Loss and Damage at the 2025 Bonn Climate Conference.

‍

What is the context?

‍

We are living in unprecedented times marked by escalating geo-political tensions and increasing numbers of conflicts including Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and civil war in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Despite the threat of existential loss and damage, political space for climate action is shrinking as increasing numbers of States lurch away from multilateralism toward nationalism and protectionism despite the reality that the global economic system is highly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis and could lose 10 percent of its total economic value by 2050. Following the inauguration of Donald Trump for his second term as president, the administration has withdrawn the United States —the world's largest historic emitter of GHGs— from the Paris Agreement and dismantled USAID. This has been followed by many other developed nations, including the UK, Germany, Netherlands, France and Canada, re-allocating funding from global development assistance to other spending priorities including military spending, in part due to the United States’ change in foreign policy on NATO and Ukraine. These actions have had wide ranging consequences across the Global South and further hamper the capacity of developing countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change and address loss and damage.

What is on the table in Bonn? 

‍

The 2025 Bonn Climate Conference provides a critical opportunity to make progress on Loss and Damage in key areas including: enhancing reporting of impacts and needs; ensuring coordination and complementarity of Loss and Damage entities; advancing the implementation of support and response; and delivering Loss and Damage finance. 

Agenda items and events indicated in the overview schedule and provisional annotated agendas for the SBSTA and SBI relevant to Loss and Damage include: 

• Negotiations on the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM) including the third review of the WIM and consideration of the 2024 joint annual report of the WIM Executive Committee (ExCom) and the Santiago Network;
  
  
• Constituted Bodies’ side events on the progress of the Implementation of the Work Under the ExCom and Full Operationalisation of the Santiago Network: Advancing a Critical Pillar of the Loss and Damage Architecture;
  
  
• Mandated events, including the second Annual Global Stocktake Dialogue on Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs); and;
  
  
• COP Presidency events, including open consultations with Parties (countries) and stakeholders on the Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T (Roadmap).
  
  

What needs to be achieved in Bonn? 

‍

Key areas where significant progress can be made on Loss and Damage in Bonn include: 

‍

The third review of the WIM

The WIM was established at COP 19 in Warsaw, Poland, in 2013. It has three functions: enhancing knowledge and understanding; strengthening dialogue, coordination, coherence and synergies; and enhancing action and support, including finance, technology and capacity building to address loss and damage.

The implementation of the functions of the WIM is guided by the ExCom and is periodically reviewed. During the second review of the WIM in 2019, the Santiago Network for averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage was established under the WIM to catalyse  technical assistance from a membership of organisations, bodies, networks and experts to developing countries and the communities within them. The technical assistance catalysed is demand driven, but includes such things as support to undertake loss and damage assessments and put policies and plans in place to address loss and damage. In Bonn the third review of the WIM will take place and it must deliver key outcomes including:

• Enhancing coordination and complementarity between the ExCom, the Santiago Network and Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD) to avoid the duplication of efforts and to reduce fragmentation;
  
  
• Massively scaling up Loss and Damage finance and other support;
  
  
• Enhancing implementation and action, including by ensuring the Santiago Network delivers technical assistance with urgency, that its membership is diverse and increasing its regional presence, as well as by strengthening the ExCom’s Expert Group on Action and Support and empowering and building the capacity of national focal points;
  
  
• Creating a new dedicated reporting process for Loss and Damage with agreement to develop guidance for National Loss and Damage Plans that can facilitate access to both the Santiago Network and the FRLD;
  
  
• Mandating an annual or bi-annual State of Loss and Damage Report;
  
  
• Enhancing accessibility of Loss and Damage knowledge products by setting up a user-friendly online portal for ExCom knowledge products and translating them into the six UN languages (e.g. the updated technical paper on non-economic losses released in 2024); and
  
  
• Simplifying and streamlining access to technical assistance, capacity building support, financial resources and technology needed to address loss and damage in developing countries.
   

In parallel to the WIM review, the constituted Bodies events on the ExCom and Santiago Network will be important opportunities to confirm the separate mandates and vision of the Loss and Damage institutions under the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement and to advance the ExCom’s preparation of voluntary guidelines on the inclusion of Loss and Damage in Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs).

‍

Consultations on the Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T

The Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T (Roadmap) was launched at COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, as part of the decision on the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG). The NCQG replaced the climate finance goal set in 2009 at COP 15 in Copenhagen for developed countries to provide 100 billion USD a year to developing countries for mitigation and adaptation. The Roadmap is intended to scale up climate finance to developing countries to the 1.3 trillion USD and 300 billion USD annual goals of the NCQG by 2035. In Bonn there will be consultations on the workplan for the Roadmap which is a critically important opportunity for countries, civil society, Indigenous People, UN Agencies and other stakeholders to stress the need for the Roadmap to address the failure of the NCQG to deliver on Loss and Damage finance. We urge participants to call for: 

• A clear plan for developed countries to provide grants from public sources at a scale of hundreds of billions a year to be put in place. One that recognises that the scale of Loss and Damage needs for developing countries are at least 724.43 billion USD a year and that the FRLD needs to disburse at least 400 billion USD a year;
  
  
• Operationalisation of support to implement Loss and Damage commitments in NDCs. Paragraph 5 of the NCQG decided that the goal will support the implementation of developing country Parties NDCs (see page 1 here). Loss and Damage commitments are included in many developing countries NDCs and must therefore be supported;       

• Filling the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage. Paragraph 16 of the NCQG decided that a significant increase of public resources should be provided through the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism of the UNFCCC  (see page 3 here). As an operating entity the FRLD should therefore be significantly capitalised and replenished with public resources. 

The consultations on the Roadmap also provide an important opportunity to elevate the importance of putting in place robust resource mobilisation strategies for the FRLD and Santiago Network in 2025. Recognising that to date only 768.40 million USD has been pledged to the FRLD, of which only  333.89 million USD has been paid in, and that the Santiago Network has only 40.6 million USD to carry out its vital work —with this amount subjected to multi-year contribution agreements.

‍

The Global Stocktake and Nationally Determined Contributions

The Global Stocktake (GST) takes place every five years to assess collective progress towards the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement. The first GST took place at COP 28 in Dubai in 2023 and the second will take place at COP 33 in 2028. The purpose of the GST is to identify progress, gaps, and areas for improvement in climate action, with the ultimate objective of guiding enhanced commitments and actions by countries in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

In Bonn the second Annual Global Stocktake Dialogue on NDCs will take place on 19-20 June, 2025. The dialogue will be of particular significance because many countries have not yet made submissions to the third round of NDCs (NDC 3.0) —the deadline for which was 10 February 2025— despite current NDCs putting the world on track for a catastrophic 2.5-2.9°C of warming by 2100. Therefore the dialogue is an important opportunity to:

• Encourage Parties to include their Loss and Damage needs, commitments and plans in their NDCs 3.0’s to enable better understanding and reporting on the scale of the Loss and Damage needs of developing countries and the provision of Loss and Damage finance by developed countries.
  
  
• Ensure that Loss and Damage is cemented as the third pillar of climate action alongside, mitigation and adaptation in the second GST and that Loss and Damage impacts on developing countries and their needs are acknowledged.

‍

How can I follow Loss and Damage at the 2025 Bonn Climate Conference? 

‍

For those not able to get accreditation for SB 62 there are a number of ways to stay informed. In some cases it will be possible to follow via live webcasts. Daily updates and de-breifs also provided by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Third World Network and Climate Action Network. 

At the Loss and Damage Collaboration we too will be providing daily updates with a focus on Loss and Damage in addition to sharing threads and posts via LinkedIn, Blue Sky, Instagram and Twitter with useful information and key messages. You can also find all of our resources for SB 62 here.