Global North countries retreat from responsibility at Bonn UN climate talks

26 June 2025 – The June UN climate talks in Bonn come to a close today, with little to no resolution outcomes from the SB62 negotiations as world leaders approach COP30 in Belém. 

Policy experts at Oil Change International raise concern that the Bonn climate talks show that climate multilateralism is facing a moment of deep crisis, endangered by broad geopolitical tensions and deep-rooted disconnects over equity and responsibility in addressing the climate crisis. 

Romain Ioualalen, Global Policy lead at Oil Change International, said: 

“In Bonn, we witnessed the Global North retreating from climate leadership and its own obligations amid the still-lingering hangover of Baku’s finance failure.

“Rich countries, led by the EU, worked across the negotiation tracks in Bonn to divert attention away from their obligation to provide finance for climate action in Global South countries, and instead promoted downright fabricated and misleading narratives on private finance filling the gap – despite ample evidence the market-led approach is not delivering the sums that are needed.

“All countries agreed at COP28 to an equitable transition away from fossil fuels, and equity demands that Global North countries move first. With the largest fossil fuel producer and expander in the world dropped out of the Paris Agreement, the EU busy watering down its NDC, and just four Global North countries responsible for over two-thirds of projected oil and gas expansion, calls from developed parties to center the implementation of the fossil fuel phaseout in the negotiations continue to ring hollow and hypocritical. 

“One area of progress was on just transition, where there is real momentum for an agreement in Belém around a mechanism putting the realities of communities and workers front and center in international and national policies.”

Notes: 

• Oil Change International research published on 23 June shows that even in the energy sector, which is presented as the one sector where private finance can deliver, this market-led approach is not working. It is not delivering the sums that are needed, nor is it reaching the communities, countries, or technologies that need it most. It is also adding to already unsustainable debt levels across the Global South.
• Oil Change International analysis published on 16 June shows that not only are Global North countries continuing to open new oil and gas fields, but only four of them (United States, Canada, Norway, and Australia) are responsible for nearly 70% of projected carbon-dioxide (CO2) pollution from new oil and gas fields and fracking wells between 2025 and 2035. This is equivalent to three times the annual emissions of all the world’s coal power plants combined.

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