Adaptation to climate change was one of the key issues during the June 2025 UNFCCC intersessional negotiations in Bonn. The Brazilian COP30 Presidency had identified the meeting as a decisive step for advancing the adaptation agenda. However, despite intense and politically significant discussions, no substantial progress was achieved.
The main issue on the table was the Global Goal on Adaptation, the Paris Agreement objective aimed at enhancing global resilience and adaptive capacity. At COP28 in Dubai, Parties adopted the United Arab Emirates Framework for Global Climate Resilience and committed to developing common indicators to assess collective progress on adaptation. The discussions in Bonn focused precisely on the design of these indicators.
During the second week of negotiations, the text under discussion was updated daily. Nevertheless, despite the efforts at mediation, no consensus was reached on a shared version, and the discussion was postponed to the next session in Belém.
One of the most debated points concerned the inclusion of indicators on climate finance, that is, the funds provided by developed countries and the resources mobilized at the national level. Some developing countries opposed this proposal, arguing that such indicators risk shifting the focus away from real-world impacts and practical solutions toward financial flows, an area still affected by a lack of trust between the Global North and South. The issue remains particularly sensitive in light of the unsatisfactory results achieved so far in the area of climate finance.
Another significant point of divergence was the level of guidance Parties should provide to the group of experts tasked with developing the indicators for monitoring the Global Goal on Adaptation. Some delegations called for clearer and more detailed instructions, proposing that Parties define the key indicators and the overall structure of the indicator framework. According to this approach, experts would then be responsible for developing sub-indicators, criteria for application, and technical elements. These countries also proposed holding a dedicated workshop before COP30 to allow structured and direct interaction between Parties and the expert group.
In contrast, most developed countries expressed a preference for keeping political influence at bay, insisting that the process should remain strictly technical and science-based to ensure independence and methodological rigor.
On the subject of indicators, both developing and some developed countries stressed the importance of adequately reflecting cross-cutting issues such as gender equality, youth participation, the inclusion of disadvantaged and climate-vulnerable populations, and the specific rights and needs of Afro-descendant communities.
In the final plenary session, which ended overnight between Thursday 26 and Friday 27 June, a partial decision text on the Global Goal on Adaptation was adopted. The text was limited to the first 21 paragraphs out of the original 39 due to continuing disagreements among Parties. Its primary purpose is to ensure that the expert group’s technical work on the indicators can proceed in the lead-up to Belém.
The expert group has been tasked with reducing and refining the consolidated list of proposed indicators to a maximum of 100 globally applicable ones. These should include, where relevant, indicators related to the conditions that support the implementation of adaptation, means of implementation, cross-cutting considerations such as gender and youth, and the various components of the previously agreed targets.
The technical work will continue immediately and will include a dedicated workshop before COP30, as requested by developing countries. Experts must follow additional guidance. Indicators should be measurable and not vague. Those describing impacts or hazards without a clear link to adaptation should be revised. Indicators derived from other frameworks must be tailored specifically to adaptation. Indicators related to mitigation must be excluded. Conversely, indicators that capture adaptation responses under different warming scenarios, in relation to the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal, must be included.
Indicators should also reflect national contexts, allowing countries to select those most relevant to their circumstances. Particular attention will be given to indicators on means of implementation, especially adaptation finance, technology and capacity building. These must measure access, quality and adequacy of support provided to meet needs and close gaps in implementing the Global Goal on Adaptation. This marks an important recognition, strongly demanded by developing countries during the negotiations, of the need to also monitor support flows, especially those related to climate adaptation finance.
Another point of discussion was the concept of transformational adaptation. This refers to the idea that there is no one-size-fits-all solution and that countries should be able to explore and value a range of adaptive options and approaches. One of the proposals involved using a reader-friendly summary to clarify the meaning of transformational adaptation, but no shared position emerged.
No agreement was reached either on the Baku Adaptation Roadmap. This instrument is intended to strengthen adaptation action with a particular focus on the most vulnerable countries and to provide operational guidance for applying the indicators developed under the Abu Dhabi Work Programme and the broader adaptation framework. Eight different options were proposed in Bonn to define the role and structure of the roadmap, which is expected to become a key tool for guiding implementation of the Global Goal on Adaptation.
The negotiations also touched on National Adaptation Plans. While Parties acknowledged the role of NAPs as essential tools for planning and implementing adaptation, only 63 countries have formally submitted one so far. In Bonn, Parties once again failed to reach agreement on the collective assessment of NAPs, a decision that had already been postponed from COP29 and remains unresolved.
A recurring demand from many developing countries was for explicit recognition of the need to strengthen the means of implementation for adaptation. This includes financial resources, technical training and technology transfer. Without adequate support, these countries argued, it will be difficult to implement adaptation strategies and actions, especially when it comes to the development and delivery of NAPs.
This message was reiterated in side events. During a press conference, the group of Least Developed Countries called for tripling adaptation finance by 2030 compared to 2022 levels (28 billion dollars), through public grant-based funding, going beyond the Glasgow Climate Pact’s target of doubling it by 2025. However, even this increase would fall short of the estimated needs outlined in UNEP’s 2024 Adaptation Gap Report, which states that between 187 and 359 billion dollars are needed each year. So far, this demand has not been reflected in the official texts.
Some developing countries went further and proposed to formally introduce a principle of conditionality in the negotiations, meaning that the implementation of NAPs in developing countries would depend on the effective availability of funding from donor countries. This proposal was firmly rejected by most developed countries, who argued that it would create an unacceptable form of dependency. According to their position, the idea that all NAPs rely entirely on external funding is inaccurate and does not reflect the diversity of possible implementation pathways.
According to some observers, further delays on NAPs risk weakening trust between developed and developing countries even more, slowing down progress on building adaptive capacity in the regions that need it most.
For now, Parties have committed to continue technical work in the coming months, with the aim of arriving in Belém with a solid basis for decisions on the evaluation of NAPs and the adoption of GGA indicators. However, the path ahead remains challenging, and the success of COP30 on adaptation will ultimately depend on the political will to reach a credible and ambitious compromise.
Original article in Italian by Giada Fenocchio and Giacomo Cozzolino, published on the website of Italian Climate Network: www.italiaclima.org
