COP30 President, André Corrêa do Lago, on Friday, May 23, 2025, issued a third letter to governments to outline what should be achieved at the preparatory UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn (SB 62), to be held from the June 16 to 26 in the run up to the landmark COP30 climate conference.
For the first time, the COP president publicly laid out three negotiation priority areas: (i) the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) indicators under the UAE–Belém Work Programme, (ii) the UAE Dialogue on implementing the GST outcomes, and (iii) the UAE Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP).
Negotiations in Bonn are well positioned to develop draft texts for decisions on these items at COP30.
Do Lago specifically emphasised the outcome of the Global stocktake in which countries agreed to “tripling renewable energy capacity globally, doubling the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements, and transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly, and equitable manner.”
The letter further highlights three interconnected priorities for SB 62 that will carry forward to COP30: to reinforce multilateral cooperation for climate action under the UNFCCC, to connect the climate emergency to people’s real lives, and to accelerate the implementation of the Paris Agreement’s commitment to limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees.
It also underscores that Indigenous Peoples and local communities are essential allies in the global response to climate change.
Andreas Sieber, 350.org Associate Director of Global Policy and Campaigns, says: “After months of ambiguity, the COP30 Presidency has finally shifted to a language of delivery. By identifying a decision on the Global Stocktake as one of its top priorities, the Presidency is moving in the right direction, especially in linking this to the phaseout of fossil fuels and the tripling of renewables as key benchmarks of implementation.
“But political signals alone won’t deliver outcomes, or ensure that implementation is just and equitable. At the Bonn climate talks, the Presidency must go further – it must exercise clear, strategic diplomacy and throw its full political weight behind securing an ambitious COP30 outcome that actually accelerates the Global Stocktake and ensures a just energy transition.”
Ilan Zugman, 350.org Latin America and Caribbean Regional Director says: “In the same week that the Brazilian government is advancing domestically with law shifts that can open up the door for environmental devastation and predatory practices in the near future, as well as getting closer and closer to exploring oil in the mouth of the Amazon, we finally see some signs from the COP30 presidency to start addressing the biggest cause of the climate crisis.
“This is a first but on its own insufficient step if not followed up by more for the “mutirão” needed to bend the world towards the end of the fossil fuel era and a just energy transition, as well as to put an end to Brazil’s contradictory quest in being a fair climate leader internationally and at the same time rowing towards the opposite direction domestically.”
This week Brazil, the host country for COP30, saw two deadly blows to environmental and climate protection that if approved could have consequences for decades to come. On May 20, the environmental protection agency IBAMA cleared another step towards Petrobas obtaining licensing for oil exploration in Block 59 off the Amazonian coast, part of a major expansion plan for the region. An auction of 47 blocks in the same basin (and 330+ all over the country) is scheduled for June 17, when Brazilian diplomats will at the same time be peddling Brazil’s green credentials to the world in Bonn.
On Wednesday, May 21, the Brazilian Senate passed a bill – by a wide majority and with votes and support from President Lula’s administration – that kills environmental impact assessments for nearly all enterprises, including, thanks to a last-minute amendment by the Senate president, oil and gas projects. The bill will return to the Chamber and a presidential veto is still a possibility.