The Bonn Climate Conference runs from June 5 to 15. The United Nations expects 4,700 to 5,200 participants. The events will take place at the World Conference Center Bonn (WCCB). On the opening day, the city and the Federal Foreign Office will host a welcome reception at the Bundeskunsthalle.

What sounds so bureaucratic has a concrete goal: preparing for the next World Climate Conference in Dubai. There, the first global assessment will come to an end, explained Manfred Fischedick, President of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy. He said the gap between aspiration and reality will become clear. "No decisions will be made in Bonn, but preparatory discussions will be held. However, it is foreseeable that the days in Bonn will not be enough for groundbreaking steps," Fischedick said. He expects further preparatory meetings before Dubai.

The conference will be held in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates from November 30 to December 12. It is also called COP 28. COP stands for Conference of the Parties. This refers to the countries that signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and it is the 28th conference of its kind. The first one was held in Berlin in 1995.

Fischedick sees many tasks: It should call on countries to improve their national greenhouse gas reduction plans. If things continue as they are, the world risks missing the target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. "The COP should ask countries to break down their mitigation plans into sectoral targets and measures to avoid a blame game between sectors," the renowned researcher said. In Germany, the opposite is happening right now: even though the transport sector is dramatically missing its CO2 targets, the transport minister is getting a reprieve from the chancellor's office. "An attempt should be made to agree on a clearer roadmap for phasing out fossil fuels," Fischedick continued.

That will depend on the negotiations. Ottmar Edenhofer, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), recently reported on remarks made by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the president of COP 28, among others, at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue. He said that while the Sultan is committed to the goal of using new technologies such as carbon capture and storage to reduce CO2 emissions, he is no longer committed to ending the use of fossil fuels such as gas, oil and coal. The Gulf states' announcements that they want to sell gas and oil for as long as possible are "worrying," Edenhofer stressed.

First of all, the states should stop subsidies for fossil technologies, said Fischedick from Wuppertal. Because China, India and Arab countries don't want it that way, voluntary action is called for. "The important thing is to continue to recruit people to join pioneering coalitions," Fischedick said. Potsdam's Edenhofer said, "The EU and the U.S. would have to stand together in the markets so that gas and oil exporters can't use the new technologies as a fig leaf for business as usual." In the coming months leading up to the next UN climate summit, "we must succeed in setting a course worldwide toward phasing out fossil fuels.”

The rich industrialized countries have repeatedly promised poor countries a fund of $100 billion to finance climate protection measures - but they are not paying up. "From our point of view, the payments would have to become so high in the next few years (if only to establish the credibility of the industrialized countries) that the 100 billion per year would be reached at least on average from 2020 to 2025," Fischedick said.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently announced that the average global temperature is likely to climb more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels for the first time in one of the next five years. Last year, the UN organization had put the probability of this threshold being reached at just under 50 percent. Now it is predicting 66 percent. Although global warming will probably not permanently exceed the 1.5-degree mark until the next 15 to 20 years, the alarm is already sounding because the mark is being temporarily breached more and more frequently, according to the WMO. Climate researcher Andreas Fink of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology said that "exceeding this threshold in any of the next five years may be interpreted as a strong sign that the 1.5-degree target of the Paris climate agreement can no longer be met.”

According to the WMO forecast, warming in the Arctic will be three times greater than the global average in the next few years. Melting permafrost in the North Pole region would threaten settlements, transport routes and pipelines. The WMO expects more rain in the summer months through 2027 in Siberia, northern Europe and the Sahel region of Africa. The Amazon region, on the other hand, faces low rainfall, it said. There is a risk of drought in the vast South American rainforest zone, which would lead to rising emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2.

Parallel to the climate conference, there will be other conferences in Bonn in the next two weeks. For example, a youth forum on climate adaptation will take place. The International Cities Network for Sustainability (Iclei) and the city of Bonn are also organizing the "Daring Cities" conference, which will focus on the engagement of cities in the climate crisis. Mayor Katja Dörner said Bonn and its partners in the city network had "ambitious concepts in their hands." Now it is time to jointly launch the joint contributions for a just climate transformation. According to the city of Bonn, the content from the meetings will be included in the negotiations.

(Orig. text: Antje Hönig, Bernd Eyerman / Translation: Carol Kloeppel)