SB62 debrief: Three voices from Bonn on adaptation progress, setbacks and priorities for COP30

The SB62 meetings, also known as the 2025 Bonn Climate ChangeConference, took place from 16-26 June 2025, bringing together experts and negotiators in sessions of the UNFCCC’s two Subsidiary Bodies: the SBSTA(scientific advice) and SBI (implementation). While these mid-year technical sessions rarely grab headlines compared to COPs, they are essential in shaping future climate outcomes by advancing negotiations, developing draft texts and seeking to resolve issues ahead of the upcoming COP.

SB62 took place during turbulent geopolitical times and was seen as a key moment to rebuild trust – particularly around adaptation, which the COP30 Presidency has declared a top priority. To unpack what happened in Bonn – where progress was made, where divisions deepened, and what it all means for COP30 – weADAPT hosted a debrief with three stakeholders who took part in SB62:

• Katy Harris, Senior Policy Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute, and observer
• María del Pilar Bueno Rubial, Senior Researcher, National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), and negotiator for Uruguay
• Lina Yassin, Researcher, IIED, and negotiator for Sudan

Adaptation at SB62

The Global Goal on Adaptation

A major focus at SB62 was advancing operationalization of the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) by reviewing and refining a shortlist of indicators to track and measure progress toward a series of adaptation and resilience targets (a key deliverable under the UAE–Belém work programme). The list of proposed indicators had already been reduced from c. 10,000 to 490 by groups of experts ahead of Bonn.

While seemingly technical in nature, what gets counted via these indicators is a highly selective and therefore politicised exercise: they could shape what gets defined, implemented and funded as ‘adaptation’ for years to come.

• Views diverged on the extent to which the indicators should explicitly track climate finance. Developing countries pushed hard for indicators focused on means of implementation, a reference to the tangible support that enables countries to implement climate action (finance, capacity building, technology transfer). Many developed countries seemed to prefer indicators to track “enabling factors of the implementation of adaptation action”, a broader and softer term that refers to conditions or elements that facilitate implementation of climate action (governance, leadership, institutions), and arguing finance was best considered elsewhere under the conventions.
• Additional tensions arose around the extent to which indicators should explicitly capture progress on cross-cutting considerations such as gender, equity, and human rights, with some Parties warning that their exclusion would risk undermining inclusivity and fairness.

Negotiations on these topics, and others, continued well into the night on the final day of SB62, reflecting deep divides over adaptation priorities and responsibilities. However, progress was made in providing clear guidance to the groups of experts charged with further refining these adaptation indicators and in outlining the road from Bonn to Belém. A final decision – containing no more than 100 indicators – is expected at COP30, with only two further workshops to lay the ground.

Transformational Adaptation

At SB62, discussions on transformational adaptation resumed – what some Parties argue is a key component of the GGA. Talks built on a 2024 UNFCCC technical paper, and 2025 user-friendly summary, outlining the concept’s core dimensions (e.g. scale, depth, speed, and sustainability) and explored how transformational change could be made operational, but no decisions were made.

Polarised views persist on what transformational adaptation means, how it would apply across national and local contexts, and whether it deserves prominence when compared to other approaches to adaptation (community-based, ecosystem-based, iterative and incremental). While many developed countries argue that its focus on systemic change is critical for elevating adaptation ambition, many developing countries raise concerns that it could impose new conditionalities without adequate support, emphasise that incremental adaptation is equally critical for saving lives and livelihoods on the ground, and call for more evidence before the concept guides policy decisions.

Discussions were captured in an informal note as the basis for continued negotiations in Belém.

The Baku Adaptation Roadmap

The Baku Adaptation Roadmap (BAR) was established at COP29 in Baku to provide a forward-looking pathway to advance the GGA beyond COP30. However, its modalities remain unclear, with differing interpretations between Parties and groups, and between negotiators and observers.

Discussions at SB62 focused on the structure, timeline and scope of the BAR, but no decisions were made. Stakeholders stressed the need for the BAR to complement, not duplicate, other UNFCCC processes, but views differed on the roadmap’s purpose: some Parties look to the BAR’s potential to provide a comprehensive adaptation agenda, while others see its function merely to provide a procedural bridge to the Global Stocktake. For many developing countries, the BAR is seen as a potential space to advance discussions on implementation and financial support for adaptation.

Discussions were captured in an informal note as the basis for continued negotiations in Belém.

National Adaptation Plans (NAPs)

National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) are country-driven processes – and resulting documents – that help identify medium- and long-term adaptation needs and outline strategies to address them. At COP26, Parties requested that the SBI initiate an assessment of progress in formulating and implementing NAPs at SB60 last year. However, a decision on this stalled at COP29 in Baku and negotiations continued at SB62 in Bonn.

Parties could not agree how to proceed. Many developing countries emphasised the need to formally recognize shortfalls in means of implementation to operationalise NAPs, and subsequently for clearer commitments from developed countries. Developed countries did not agree.

A procedural conclusion was reached to adopt a proposal from the G77+China – called a ‘Conference Room Paper’ – as a footnote to the draft conclusions, which will be further discussed in Belém.

Adaptation Finance

The Baku to Belém Roadmap, an outcome of COP29, outlines a $1.3 trillion/year mobilization goal for climate finance by 2035, but lacks a specific target for adaptation finance. A 2019 commitment – in which developed countries pledged to double adaptation finance to developing countries by 2025 – is expiring this year. In light of this, the continued bias of climate finance toward mitigation, and what many regard as a weak outcome on climate finance at COP29, many developing countries are calling for a new target – a commitment by developed countries to triple adaptation finance to developing countries by 2030.

There was no agenda item (i.e. formal space to negotiate) on climate finance at SB62, frustrating many Parties and contributing to gridlock in other adaptation areas. Proposals to integrate finance tracking into the GGA framework were discussed but remain unresolved. Broader concerns persist about access, quality, and predictability of adaptation finance, beyond discussions of volume.

Other adaptation agenda items

Several important agenda items beyond these headlines shaped adaptation planning, implementation and reporting during the Bonn Climate ChangeConference.

• Nairobi Work Programme: Parties made a breakthrough in calling for renewed mandates and resources to strengthen its knowledge-sharing role.
• Adaptation Committee Review: The review stalled due to a number of governance-related concerns and trust issues.
• Adaptation Communications: A new agenda item; initial discussions were constructive, but clarity on timelines and scope is still required.

The Road to COP30

The Brazilian COP30 Presidency is positioning adaptation as a top political priority—but major challenges remain. Turning technical progress into political consensus will demand deft diplomacy all the way from Bonn to Belém.

While SB62 made procedural progress, the negotiations also revealed deep, unresolved divides, especially around finance, equity, and governance. The success of COP30 will hinge on Parties’ ability to bridge these divides – long held, but particularly acute in the current geopolitical and socioeconomic environment.

The Brazilian Presidency has a key role in working to rebuild trust, and creating space for inclusive and solutions-focused engagement. However, the whole climate community will need to play its part in shaping expectations for a high ambition COP – that delivers on adaptation action – at milestone moments on the road to Belém, from the Africa Climate Summit in Ethiopia to the NAP Expo in Zambia.