Today, June 26, 2025, Rachel Rose Jackson, Corporate Accountability’s Director of Research and International Climate Policy, issued the following statement from the closing sessions of the UNFCCC SB62 Climate Talks in Bonn, Germany:
“The Bonn climate talks are concluding with a complete disconnect from the reality of the world we are living in—a world whose very existence is at stake. These talks didn’t require Global North governments to pay their climate debt or do their fair share of climate action. They certainly didn’t hold Big Polluters responsible for fueling the climate crisis or protect these talks from Big Polluters’ stranglehold. They didn’t advance a just transition off fossil fuels. They didn’t advance real solutions over the dangerous distractions currently providing a get-out-of-jail-free card for the world’s largest polluters. They didn’t acknowledge the fossil-fueled genocide being enabled by many of the same actors blocking a strong response to the climate crisis.
Ultimately, the Bonn climate talks didn’t save lives. The Bonn climate talks condemned them.
What, then, is the purpose of international collaboration on climate change?
These talks have become divorced from the science and lived experience of the climate crisis. While trillions of dollars are being poured into nuclear war by the very same governments that are responsible for climate change—and while the very same corporations that knowingly fueled the climate crisis are getting even richer from these wars—not a penny is offered to the countries and communities already facing life or death from the climate crisis. While countries around the world cave to authoritarianism and the far right, these talks pander to this agenda, rather than resist it. And while global temperatures reach record highs and people around the world are living the reality of the climate crisis, these talks further lock in a fossil-fueled agenda, rather than hold those responsible to account.
Bonn should have filled in the potholes on the road to Belém, ensuring the world is on track to avoid climate breakdown. Instead, the road to Belém is now paved with landmines, and the work ahead of us is harder than it has ever been.
The signposts on the road to COP30 are clearly marked. End the ability of Big Polluters to write the rules of climate action. Hold Global North governments responsible for doing their fair share of climate action and paying their climate debt. End fossil fuels justly and urgently. Reject dangerous distractions and fast-track to Real Zero with real solutions. Center those on the frontlines—Indigenous Peoples, communities of color, those in the Global South—not Big Polluters. Will world governments urgently course correct, or will they push us off a cliff?”
