Preparations for this year’s Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB58) are in full swing. The two-week conference, which starts Monday, 5 June, will prepare the ground for decisions to be taken at COP28 in December in the United Arab Emirates.
Building on the many mandates that emerged from COP27 in Egypt last year, the conference will convene the 58th session of the UN Climate Change (UNFCCC) subsidiary bodies, including many events.
Among the issues of critical importance this year are the global stocktake; the global adaptation goal; the just transition to sustainable societies; the work programme on mitigation; and the issue of loss and damage.
“A matter of survival”
“For many people around the world, limiting warming of our planet to 1.5 degrees Celsius is a matter of survival. The global stocktake is the opportunity of a generation to correct the course we are on, to design a way forward to tackle climate change with fresh vigour and perspective,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell.
Another key task at SB58 will be to prepare decisions at COP28 to operationalise the new loss and damage fund and funding arrangements, along with a decision on the host for the Santiago network on loss and damage.
Stiell added: “COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh marked the shift to implementation of the Paris Agreement, resulting in several important outcomes supporting this historic new phase. Parties know what is at stake, and each country now has to deliver.”
“The upcoming Bonn sessions are critical”
Other important issues will be increasing the transparency and accountability of climate action and minimising the impacts that climate change is having on the agriculture and food security sectors.
“The upcoming Bonn sessions are critical to shaping meaningful, pragmatic and effective outcomes at COP28. Our goal is to build on the results of SB58 to achieve a balanced and ambitious outcome in the United Arab Emirates this December,” said COP28 President-Designate Dr Sultan Al Jaber.
The Bonn Climate Change Conference will run until 15 June.
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