In year of 'negative news', UN climate chief says 1.5 deg C goal still achievable

New Delhi: UN climate chief Simon Stiell on Monday said that despite a year dominated by negative headlines, many of the world's largest economies are showing encouraging signs of action on climate change and that keeping global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius is still possible.

At the opening of the mid-year UN climate conference in Bonn, Germany, Stiell said worsening climate impacts in every country highlight the need for continued cooperation.

"This year, beneath the noisier negative news, there are plenty of good reasons for optimism. We are seeing green lights for climate actions from many of the world's biggest economies, sending powerful demand signals to investors and doers," he said.

Stiell said countries must use the Bonn talks to finalise indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation.

Negotiators in Bonn must "deep-dive" to create a roadmap for mobilising $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 to help developing countries fight climate change, he said.

At COP29 in Azerbaijan's Baku last November, countries agreed to triple climate finance to $300 billion a year by 2035, part of a broader goal to mobilise $1.3 trillion.

In Bonn, countries are expected to begin consultations on the "Baku to Belem Roadmap", which will guide the delivery of this goal.

Stiell urged countries to ensure that the Mitigation Work Programme -- established at COP26 in Glasgow to urgently scale up mitigation ambition -- builds momentum for "actionable solutions that respond to the urgency".

At COP28 in Dubai, countries completed the first Global Stocktake -- a two-year review of the collective global progress towards achieving the Paris Agreement goals -- and decided to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, double the global rate of energy efficiency improvements by 2030 and transition away from fossil fuels.

Stiell said countries must also make progress on the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake at Bonn.

"None of these issues are easy. Disagreement is natural," Stiell said, adding that the progress made in the next 10 days will make a "very real" difference to billions of lives and livelihoods in every country.

He said that recent COPs have all produced concrete, major global steps forward.

"Even if imperfect, even if no country gets everything it wants, this is human solidarity in action... Without UN-convened climate multilateralism, we would be headed for up to 5 degrees Celsius of global heating. Now it's around 3. A reminder that 1.5 and protecting all people continue to be both achievable over the course of time and utterly essential," the UN climate change chief said.

The mid-year UN climate meetings held annually in Bonn help countries work out technical details before the annual UN climate conferences known as COP.

If countries do not make enough progress in Bonn, it becomes much harder to agree on anything at COP.

This year, the Bonn talks are taking place amid geopolitical tensions, military conflicts, trade disputes, the US exit from the Paris Agreement and developed countries' failure to deliver climate finance, all of which have weakened trust among nations and made climate action more difficult.

The talks also come amid a stark warning from the World Meteorological Organization, which said last month that there is a 70 per cent chance the average global temperature between 2025 and 2029 will exceed pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In a letter to countries outlining its expectations from the Bonn talks, Brazil, the host of this year's UN climate summit, said that special focus will be on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) indicators, the UAE Dialogue on implementing the findings of the Global Stocktake and the UAE Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP), aimed at making the shift away from fossil fuels fair and inclusive.